Phantom Hands, in collaboration with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, has produced re-editions of Geoffrey Bawa’s iconic furniture pieces. The exhibition, “Design in the Moment,” opened in mid-December last year at the freshly restored Kannangara House in Colombo, designed by Bawa in 1959.
Aparna Rao, co-founder of Phantom Hands, delicately recreated some of Bawa’s most iconic furniture pieces. Rao’s team conducted extensive research and prototyping to understand Bawa’s approach. “I wasn’t sure at the time if part of Bawa’s philosophy was that things didn’t need to be precise, or whether, because he wanted to support local workers, he made peace with the quality of the work they could produce,” Rao says.
The exhibition features material samples from Bawa’s practice, reproductions, and prototypes of the pieces. Channa Daswatte, chairperson of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, hopes people will take away a new appreciation for Bawa’s furniture designs. “Everybody speaks of him as an architect, but because sometimes architecture is so huge, overwhelming, fabulous, and glamorous—furniture somehow brings it down to a more human level,” Daswatte says.
Some of the furniture pieces on display include:
The Kandalama lounge chairs, made of aluminum, with the De Saram log bench in rain tree wood and teak.
The Leopold seat, originally designed for Bawa’s Dalmatians.
The Igloo ashtray, designed to fit in the smoker’s hand, with a domed brass covering limiting the spread of cigarette fumes and ashes.
