21st Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture by Anupama Kundoo on 9 Aug.

The 2024 Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture will be delivered by architect and educator Anupama Kundoo at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, 9 August at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (No. 100, Sri Lanka Padanama Mawatha, Independence Square, Colombo 7). 

Her talk is titled “Rethinking Material Resources alongside Human Resourcefulness”.

This annual event, organised by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, coincides with Bawa’s birth anniversary, marked each year on 23 July. Kundoo graduated from the University of Mumbai in 1989 and received her PhD from Technische Universität Berlin in 2008. 

Her research-oriented practice, started in 1990 in Auroville, has generated people-centric architecture based on spatial and material research for low environmental impact while being socioeconomically beneficial. Her body of works was recently exhibited as a solo show, “Taking Time”, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. 

She has taught architecture and urban management at various international universities including Yale and Columbia, strengthening her expertise in rapid urbanisation and climate change-related development issues. She is currently a Professor at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany and the Norman Foster Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale University. 

She received the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for her contribution to architectural theory, the 2021 Auguste Perret Prize for architectural technology, the 2021 Building Sense Now Global Award of the German Sustainable Building Council DGNB, and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under UNESCO patronage in 2022. 

Her studios are based in Berlin, Germany, and Pondicherry, India. 

Kundoo’s rigorous research and experimentation in new materiality for architecture is the result of questioning basic assumptions and construction habits that humanity has adopted during the long process of industrialisation. Rather than focusing on shortage, she sought abundance by investing in human resources and human resourcefulness, such as ingenuity, time, skills, care, and a sense of community.

Admission to the lecture is free, but seats are limited and prior registration is required. Doors close at 6:20 p.m. Visit geoffreybawa.com/memorial-lectures to register. 

This lecture is supported by Miles Young and exclusive media partners Daily Mirror and The Sunday Times.