“Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential To Be There”, the historic seven-week-long exhibition featuring the works of Sri Lanka’s iconic architect the late Geoffrey Bawa, which was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi came to an end on 07 May.

According to the National Gallery of Modern Art, more than 28,000 people had visited the exhibition since it was inaugurated on 17 March by the External Affairs Minister of India Dr. S. Jaishankar, until the date of its closure.  

The exhibition was jointly organized by the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, the High Commission of Sri Lanka in New Delhi and the Geoffrey Bawa Trust to mark the 75th anniversary of Indo-Lanka diplomatic relations, which falls this year.

Over 120 documents from the Bawa archives were on display in the exhibition, including a section on unbuilt work and Bawa’s own photographs from his travels. It explored relationships between ideas, drawings, buildings and places, and the different ways in which images were used in Bawa’s practice.

“Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential To Be There”, the first major exhibition that draws from the archives to look at the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa’s practice, is the first retrospective exhibition of Bawa’s works to be shown internationally since 2004. Earlier, his work had been exhibited at multiple venues in Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, North America, Australia, India, Brazil, Singapore, and Germany.