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Minnette de Silva: the brilliant female architect forgotten by history Minnette de Silva and politician George de Silva at the 1948 World Congress of Intellectuals in Defence of Peace. Photograph: PAP Source:Theguardian Against all odds, the 1940s pioneer of Sri Lankan modernism became one of the world’s most famous women architects. So why are her buildings not celebrated today? The second house designed by Minnette de Silva, once one of the most famous female architects in the world, stands in Alfred House Gardens, a leafy street in Colombo, Sri Lanka, tucked away from the fumes of nearby Galle Road. Raised on columns, the house shelters within a limestone boundary wall, its iron gate patterned with leaf shapes. A yellow oleander tree and red bougainvillea spill over the gate, almost entirely obscuring the house that was built for family friends the Pierises in 1952. Inside are De Silva’s trademark features: open courtyards and ...