Learning through rural practice

Chinese architect Yang Zhao will deliver this year's Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture

Chinese architect Yang Zhao, the Founder of Zhaoyang Architects in China will deliver this year's Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture. The lecture is on "Learning through Rural Practice" where Archt. Zhao will speak about his experience from his first project "Niyang River Visitor Center" in Tibet, and "Home for all" in Kesennuma, Japan, to a series of ongoing projects in Dali, Yunnan Province.

Among Yang Zhao's several built works, the Niyang River Visitor Center in Tibet, completed in collaboration with Standard architecture, has received international acclaim and in 2010 he was awarded the WA Chinese Architecture Award from Beijingbased World Architecture magazine

Deshamanya Geoffrey Bawa is recognised as having been among the greatest Asian architects of the second half of the Twentieth Century, and one of the most significant Sri Lankans of his time. He was Sri Lanka's most influential and prolific architects and South Asia's leading guru of tropical architecture. In a span of about 50 years, he created a wide range of architectural works, which established prototypes for buildings in newly independent Sri Lanka. He designed about thirty hotels and contributed enormously to the image that Sri Lanka projected to the rest of the world. Many guide books to the island now include his buildings as 'must see' places and rate his hotels as being among the best on the island. Bawa also built in many other Asian countries including India, Indonesia and Mauritius.

The Geoffrey Bawa memorial lecture organised by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust coincides with Geoffrey Bawa's death anniversary. The 13th Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture will be held on May 23 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute Auditorium, Independence Square, Colombo 7, at 6.30 p.m.

All are welcome.