Oliver Weerasinghe

Oliver Weerasinghe
Ambassador to the United States
Personal details
Nationality	Sri Lankan
Alma mater	University of Liverpool, Royal College, Colombo
Occupation	diplomat, civil servant
Profession	Architect

Oliver Weerasinghe, FRIBA was a Sri Lankan architect & diplomat. He was Sri Lanka's first City Planner and former Ambassador to the United States. ^[1] As such he his referred to as the "Father of Sri Lanka's Town Planning".

Weerasingh was educated at the prestigious Royal College Colombo and went on to study architecture at the University of Liverpool, under the guidance of Sir Patrick Abercrombie. Later he became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He was a founding President of the Ceylon Institute of Architects.

He gain wide recognition when his deigned the "Lake House Building", the headoffice of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon, own by press baron D. R. Wijewardena. He then became Ceylon's first city planner, when he was appointed to the newly created post of Architect and City Planner of Ceylon, as the head Ceylon's first Department of Town and Country Planning. In this capacity he was instrumental in the planning and development of the new city of Anuradhapura in 1940's, it was a step to preserving the ancient city. He headed a committee to study housing development in the island and its recommendations lead to the creation of the Ministry for Housing in 1954.

In 1956, he joined the United Nations and was later appointed as Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States. During his tenure he established four consulates and the Buddhist Temple of Washington, D.C..

Oliver Weerasinghe married Christobel Kotalawala, the only daughter of Sir Henry Kotalawala, a member of the State Council of Ceylon from Uva and Badulla for 28 years. Their son Rohan, is a Senior Managing Partner of a major global law firm and daughter, Menakka, is a former lecturer at the University of Michigan.

References

1. ^ The saga of the Kotelawala family, by Padma Edirisinghe

External links

• First town planner of Sri Lanka
• The father of Sri Lanka's town planning
• First Sri Lankan to become a Town Planner
• Sri Lanka Institute of Architects

Persondata
Name	Weerasinghe, Oliver
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	1980
Place of death