Featured Image Credits – New York Times/Viran de Silva
Beruwala, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka’s iconic Brief Garden has been featured by The New York Times, spotlighted as one of the world’s most remarkable garden destinations. The tropical retreat in Beruwala, designed by landscape architect Bevis Bawa, was recognised for its distinctive design, lush landscape, and enduring artistic legacy.
The feature came through Colombo-based fashion designer and creative director Amesh Wijesekera, who named Brief Garden as one of his most cherished garden visits. For Wijesekera, the garden is more than a beautiful space — it’s a source of creative philosophy.
“The grounds aren’t one massive thing, but many gardens in one,” he told the Times. “When I work with artisans, I tell them to look at their environment and let that rawness come through — and that comes from nature.”
Brief Garden has a story worth knowing. What began as a rubber plantation in the 1920s was slowly, painstakingly transformed by Bevis Bawa the older, lesser-known brother of celebrated architect Geoffrey Bawa into a wild, intimate sanctuary filled with dense tropical plantings, erotic sculptures, and art-covered interiors. Located just two hours from Colombo, the garden sits quietly in a village surrounded by paddy fields, unchanged in spirit while so much of Sri Lanka’s urban landscape has shifted around it.
That contrast is exactly what makes it special. As Wijesekera noted, Colombo’s old trees and character-filled homes are rapidly disappearing, replaced by modern towers. Brief Garden, by comparison, has only deepened with time.
For travellers exploring Sri Lanka’s southern coast, it remains one of the most genuinely unique stops you can make.
