Minnette De Silva

Minnette De Silva was an internationally recognized architect, considered the pioneer of the modern architectural style in Sri Lanka. De Silva was a fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute and died in November 1998.

De Silva's work and life are discussed in Flora Samuel's book Le Corbusier: Architect and Feminist.

Career

De Silva was the first Sri Lankan woman to be trained as an Architect and the first South Asian woman to be elected a Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). She returned to Sri Lanka in 1948 and her experiments in architecture began with the Karunaratne House, Kandy. This house still stands in the city as a testimony to the De Silva's novel approach to design.

In 1960 she left Sri Lanka for 5 years and called it her period of self-renewal. She spent this time travelling in Greece, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and revisited India. After her return to Sri Lanka she was engaged in the design of a series of large tourist hotels. In 1975 Minnette went Hong Kong to join the Department of Architecture as the first woman architect.

The Kandy Art Centre

Having left Hong Kong after 5 years, in 1982 de Silva settled down to work on the Kandy Art Centre in her hometown. The Centre was designed with many levelled kandyan flat tiled roofs and symbiotic indigenous features, thorana (gateways), midulas (open courts), mandapas (pavilions), rangahala (space for dance and music), avanhala (refectory).

The centre was designed as a large interactive space where a number of activities could take place with a strong symbiotic relationship of architecture and entertainment. The excavated area to the rear formed a natural amphitheatre, and the 150 year old building adjoining the site became a focus of the new design. A kandyan village setting with trees and plants was a pleasing foil to the Temple of the Tooth and the malwatta Vihara (reidence of the high priest of the sest). Minnette willed the Art Centre to be the most characteristic and living illustration in the region of a contemporary Kandyan Architecture.

References

• HECAR Foundation biography

External links

• Women architects
• Examples of work/design

Persondata
Name	De Silva, Minnette
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	1998
Place of death