Indo-Lankan bonding through celebrated architect

The National Gallery of Modern Art, the Ministry of Culture, India, the High Commission of Sri Lanka, New Delhi with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust Colombo, presents Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential to be There – the first major exhibition which draws from the archives to look at Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa’s practice.

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of Indo-Lanka Diplomatic Relations, this event celebrates the Cultural Exchange Programme between India and Sri Lanka.

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


This exhibition was first presented in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from February–April 2022.

Although Bawa’s work has been exhibited at multiple venues in Sri Lanka, UK, USA, Australia, India, Brazil, Singapore, and Germany, this is the first exhibition to focus on the archive, and the first retrospective exhibition of his work to be shown internationally since 2004.