Sri Lanka Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Sri Lanka Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Sri Lanka Editorial Team

Regional Editor, South Asia: Tara de la Motte

Sri Lanka’s greatest works of art are often rooms and gardens. Geoffrey Bawa’s houses open to the breeze; a lakeside estate near Bentota was shaped over half a century; and the island’s painters, weavers and makers bring the same sense of colour and place to canvas and cloth. Here is the story behind them, and how to see them well.

From Sigiriya to the ’43 Group

The island’s painted tradition is ancient. The women of the Sigiriya frescoes, from the 5th century, are its best-known ancient paintings, and temple murals carried the tradition on for centuries, from the cave temples of Dambulla to the 20th-century murals of Kelaniya. Before you climb Sigiriya, spend half an hour in the museum by the ticket office, which explains the fortress, the water gardens, the frescoes and the finds from excavation.

The modern story begins in Colombo in 1943, when a group of artists gathered around the photographer and patron Lionel Wendt founded the ’43 Group. George Keyt, Ivan Peries, Justin Daraniyagala, Harry Pieris and their friends brought modern European ideas to Sri Lankan subjects and traditions, and made the island’s modern art known abroad. The Lionel Wendt Art Centre, named after their patron, still hosts plays, concerts, dance and exhibitions in Colombo 7.

In Sri Lanka the line between a house and its garden is drawn so lightly that you hardly notice when you have stepped outside.

Geoffrey Bawa’s rooms and gardens

Geoffrey Bawa (1919–2003) is Sri Lanka’s most celebrated architect, and his buildings changed the way the island lives. Born in Colombo, he first trained as a lawyer in England, studied architecture in London after buying a rubber estate near Bentota, and returned in the late 1950s to join the practice of Edwards, Reid & Begg. Over four decades he designed houses, hotels, schools and public buildings, in a style now known as tropical modernism: verandahs, courtyards, pools and deep roofs that throw shade and shed the monsoon rain, with inside and outside merging, and the work of Sri Lankan craftsmen and artists woven through.

Begin in Colombo at Number 11, the town house he made by joining four small bungalows on a lane off Bagatalle Road. It is a sequence of courtyards and light wells, filled with his collection of art and objects, and it is a lesson in how to live well in the heat. Tours are guided and last about 45 minutes; the Geoffrey Bawa Trust sets the times, and asks that you book ahead, at least two weeks ahead for weekends. Late arrivals cannot be accommodated.

His former office on Alfred House Road is now The Gallery Café, with a courtyard pool, a gallery and a long, calm verandah: a graceful place for lunch. Further out, he redesigned the Seema Malaka pavilions that float on Beira Lake for Gangaramaya Temple, and the Parliament complex at Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, completed in 1982, rises from an island in the Diyawanna Oya lake under copper roofs that echo temple and palace architecture; it is a working building, best admired from the lakeside paths.

Lunuganga

Bawa’s lifelong project was Lunuganga, his country estate on a lake near Bentota. From 1948 until his death he turned a rubber plantation into a garden of terraces, views, paths and pavilions. Today the Geoffrey Bawa Trust runs it, with guided garden tours daily at 11am, 2pm and 3pm; outside tour times the garden is closed to the public. The paths have steps, steep slopes and uneven ground, so wear flat shoes. You can also stay in the garden rooms, and wake to the garden at its quietest.

Colour and cloth

Sri Lankan style owes as much to its makers as to its architects. Barefoot, the handloom company founded by the artist Barbara Sansoni, is famous for its brilliantly coloured cottons; behind the Colombo store, the Garden Café sits in a shady courtyard with a gallery and a bookshop around it. Paradise Road, Shanth Fernando’s design house, is a by-word for Sri Lankan style with its black-and-white homeware and tableware. For traditional crafts, the state-run Laksala stores, in Colombo and Kandy, sell masks, batik, lacquerware, brass and wood carvings at fixed prices, a useful benchmark before you bargain in the markets.

In the south, the Martin Wickramasinghe Folk Museum at Koggala, in the writer’s family home and gardens, shows the tools, crafts and traditions of village life, and the National Museum in Galle Fort keeps masks, lacework and woodcarving from the region.

The galleries of Colombo

For today’s art, the Saskia Fernando Gallery shows contemporary Sri Lankan artists in changing exhibitions, and is a fine place to buy work by established and emerging names. The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka, founded as a not-for-profit in 2019, describes itself as the country’s first publicly accessible museum of modern and contemporary art. The National Museum of Colombo, opened in 1877 beside Viharamahadevi Park, holds the island’s bronzes, stone sculpture, masks and royal regalia of the Kandyan kings.

The cultural calendar

Colombo’s contemporary art festival, Colomboscope, has run since 2013; its ninth edition, “Rhythm Alliances”, was held in January 2026. The Galle Literary Festival held its 13th edition in Galle Fort in January 2026. Neither had announced dates for 2027 when we checked in October 2026, so follow their own websites for the next editions.

What’s new

MMCA Sri Lanka (checked October 2026): the museum has moved from its temporary premises at Crescat Boulevard, Colombo 3, and over the coming years will open in different places, project by project. Check its website for the current exhibition and venue before you go.

Our advice

Plan a Bawa day in Colombo, with Number 11 in the morning, lunch at The Gallery Café and an afternoon among the shops of Barefoot and Paradise Road, and book Number 11 well ahead. On the south coast, give Lunuganga the 11am tour, before the heat, and stay the night if you can.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Sri Lanka Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.