Dear Mr Ampersand: Can you help me with an ultimate Geoffrey Bawa itinerary for my architect husband?

Dear Mr Ampersand,

My husband is an architect and is utterly fascinated by the late, great Geoffrey Bawa. I’d like to surprise him with a holiday to Sri Lanka that celebrates Bawa’s legacy but I’ve no idea where to begin.

What should I do to ensure this is the architectural pilgrimage of his dreams?

Yours,
Plotting in Primrose Hill

Dear Plotting,

Oh how deliciously cultured of you.

You’ve chosen one of the most civilised ways to surprise a spouse: with a plane ticket, a cunning itinerary and a quiet confidence that you’ve nailed their secret fantasy - in this case, a tropically decadent Geoffrey Bawa trail through Sri Lanka.

I commend you. Now let’s get to work.

Step One: Book a Room at Lunuganga (and pack the caftans)

If you do nothing else, make sure you spend at least one night at Lunuganga, Bawa’s beloved country estate in Bentota.

It is not a hotel. It is a living sketchbook - a wabi-sabi Eden where Italianate follies flirt with frangipani and shadows are very much part of the design.

Stay in The Gatehouse Room or, if you really want to make your husband cry gently into his Arrack Sour, Bawa’s own bedroom, which you can request.

Warning: You may find him wandering the gardens barefoot at dawn, murmuring about axial sightlines and the genius of spatial pause. Let him. It’s part of the process.

Step Two: Follow the Bawa Breadcrumb Trail

Once you’ve had your fill of garden rooms and gin & tonics, move gracefully through the island, collecting Bawa buildings (and kindred spirits) as if they were Fabergé eggs.

✓ Lunuganga Estate (Bentota) – Bawa’s rural retreat and masterpiece. Stay here. Don’t argue.

✓ No. 11 (Colombo) – His private city residence, now open to visitors by appointment. It's intimate, intelligent and quietly dazzling.

✓ Barefoot (Colombo) – A riot of handwoven colour and Ceylon soul, created by Barbara Sansoni, Bawa’s dear friend and collaborator. Her son, Dominic, who runs the shop and café, knew Bawa intimately and can regale you with fabulous stories over tea. You may leave with textiles, books and a surprising desire to repaint your entire home ochre.

✓ The Gallery Café (Colombo) – Once his offices, now a glamorous, candlelit restaurant. Go for lunch, stay for dinner and cocktails. Bonus points if it rains while you're there.

✓ Heritance Kandalama (Dambulla) – Built into a cliff, swallowed by jungle and so seamlessly integrated into its surroundings that you might not even notice it’s a hotel. Genius.

✓ The Last House (Tangalle) – Breezy, beachy and a little flirtatious. This was his final work and it feels like a gentle sigh in the form of a beach villa.

✓ The Lighthouse Hotel (Galle) – A bold, modernist oceanfront fortress. The staircase alone - flanked with sculpted battles between Portuguese invaders and Sri Lankan warriors - is worth the journey.

✓ Brief Garden (near Bentota) – Technically Bevis Bawa’s domain (Geoffrey’s flamboyant older brother), but too leafy and theatrical to miss. Think Brideshead Revisited with bougainvillaea.

Step Three: Stir in Some Sri Lankan Chaos

Bawa may have been a master of restraint, but Sri Lanka is not - and it’s all the better for it. Add contrast:

One glorious train ride through the hill country, windows open, hair wild.

A temple or three, to witness how everything that isn’t Bawa is somehow even more outrageous.

A few nights in Galle Fort, where you can pretend to house-hunt while sipping cocktails at a merchant’s villa.

This isn’t just a holiday. It’s an education, a love letter and a sensory immersion in Bawa’s world.

By the end, your husband may want to move to Sri Lanka, commission a pavilion and spend his days barefoot in linen sketching shadows on coral-stone walls.

Encourage him. And keep the gin stocked.

Yours

Mr Ampersand

If this letter has piqued your curiosity (and I do hope it has), you may slip further down the rabbit hole here: Geoffrey Bawa: An Architectural Tour of Sri Lanka

Consider it your prelude to paradise, exquisitely arranged and entirely Bawa-approved.