This year’s Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Los Angeles-based architects Frank Escher and Ravi Gune Wardena at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in Colombo 7 on July 24 at 6.30 p.m. The annual Memorial Lecture commemorates Geoffrey Bawa’s birthday and celebrates impactful architecture from around the world.
The speakers’ architecture firm, Escher Gune Wardena Architecture, established in 2015, includes projects ranging from custom homes and housing, preservation of work of iconic buildings and collaborations with artists, art galleries, and exhibitions around the world. This breadth of experience across diverse projects will bring a multi-disciplinary focus to this year’s much anticipated lecture: Clocks and Clouds.
Known for their preservation of work by notable twentieth-century architects, the duo will discuss how immersion in the principles, philosophies, and attitudes that go into making great spaces enhances their own practice. Their restoration of iconic works include the Eames House (built in 1949), John Lautner’s Chemosphere (1960), Gregory Ain’s Greene Residence (1962), Paul R. William’s Residence (1952), and the recently completed Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra (1929).
Escher and Gune Wardena will also host a workshop for architecture students and young architects titled Historic Preservation / A Role for Contemporary Architects at the De Saram House in Colombo 7 on July 25, from 5.00–7.00 p.m.
Escher and Gune Wardena regularly design new houses and commercial projects in the Los Angeles area, including a 100-acre meditation centre campus for California’s Sri Lankan community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
