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Nature looms amidst light and space
“Why Kandalama?” I asked and Harshani Fenando’s reply was “I wanted to design for an eco-friendly concept and Kandalama Hotel provided me with the space to respond to, and hopefully to enhance the feeling of light and space.”
Architect Geoffrey Bawa is said to have designed this hotel according to the concept of the village “Attala”, a sheltered tree-top platform from which farmers keep a night vigil for intruding elephants.

Mr. Bawa successfully recreated the feel of the environment with his skilful use of space so that one sees the outside from the inside of this hotel oblivious of feeling that one is inside the building.

Harshani’s design resource studies-- explored and recorded through sketches-- colour experiments--using combinations of colouring media, textural collage work that capture the vistas viewed through the spaces created by the architect and including her knowledge of village agricultural life, make a tactile presentation.

There are studies of sand, gravel, water, rain, trees, sunrise and sunset, the life of the paddy fields –fires on the “Kamatha” during harvesting time plus the occasional forest fires…

This rich collection of work has been translated into the language of yarn and fabric using the handloom innovatively. Twenty-six products have been channelled into specific requirements of named areas of the hotel – the entrance lobby – Kashyapa Hall, Kaludiya Bar, the lobby of the Kanchana Lounge and bedrooms of the Sigiriya Wing.

The two 10 x1½ wide wall hangings for the entrance lobby have spectacular colours, reds, oranges, yellows of a tropical sunset woven into the darkness of nightfall.

The subtle colours and textures of the famous mirror wall of Sigiriya are echoed in the 40’ x 3’ horizontal wall-hanging in the dining room of the Kashyapa Hall which has a view of the Sigiriya rock.

The table linen is in off-white cotton yarn and jute with serviettes in mustard and cinnamon with our traditional “Getapismainthu” motif woven along the edges. The table linen is in resonance with the colours of the wall hanging.
Dawn and dusk across the lake as seen from the Kaludiya Bar are reflected in the 40’ x 3 ½’ horizontal wall hanging in the lobby bar. A production problem with respect to weaving a width of 40’ has been imaginatively overcome by weaving in sections and joining the sections together making the stitching of the seams an integral part of the colour-texture composition; a creative solution to a production constraint. The table is in black and white-a black and white spot for the top table cloth used diagonally over a pure white square table cloth.

In the Sigiriya wing, bedroom curtains have the feel of roots, twigs and creepers without leaves effectively captured with the use of textured fancy yarn in off-whites, browns and pearl-grays in an open-weave.

The blues, greens and others of the scene outside viewed though the rhythmic lacunae formations of yarn, colour these daytime see through curtains in a delicate optical mixture of pleasant colours.

The draw –curtain for the night is in a sumptuous weave of shades of jungle greens and browns. The wads of weft yarn used to capture the luxuriance of our jungle foliage may not have the approval of a textile technologist!
This surely is a textile designer’s right to “poetic licence”. Bedspreads hand-woven in a gravel-like texture and in colours of the lakeside sandy shore set off this bedroom ensemble effectively. The washroom wall hanging is an attempt to weave water drops and trickles of water in colours of turquoise and deep shades of blue.

The writer is a Textile Design Consultant

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