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A Revolutionary Architect: Minnette De Silva (A Brief Memoir by Jane Russell) Chapter One Source:Thuppahis Randima Attygalle, in DailyFT, 30 November 2023, where the title runs thus: “Celebrating A Revolitonary Housing Feat” ..… with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi Endorsed by the World Monuments Fund, a first for Sri Lanka, ‘88 Acres’, the latest exhibition by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA) resurrects the Watapuluwa Housing Scheme in Kandy, a forgotten watershed in the contemporary history of Sri Lanka that heralded a new form of social housing here at home. ‘88 Acres’ explores how this sprawling hillside development completed in 1958, was ahead of its time in providing affordable accommodation for a diverse ethno-religious community of public servants in Sri Lanka. The exercise is also a celebration of its unsung designer Minnette de Silva, Sri Lanka’s first woman architect, the first Asian woman to be elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of ...

Dec 20, 2023 Posted by In Articles, Jane Russell Tagged , ,
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Minnette de Silva (1918-1998) Illustration by Suweeja Kumari Source:Architectural-review Expressive, unapologetic, and ahead of her time in ecological and participative design, the Sri Lankan architect is considered a pioneer of what she called Modern Regionalism – later to be known as Critical Regionalism Minnette de Silva had a knack for being at the centre of things. A photograph taken at the 1947 CIAM conference in Bridgwater, Somerset, shows rows of besuited white men and the occasional woman. Among them are Le Corbusier, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. In the middle, seated next to Walter Gropius, is de Silva, a diminutive figure swathed in a silk sari and wearing a flower in her hair. She knew the effect she had on people, particularly men, and she used it. Not for her the anonymity of assimilation. Canny, determined and unapologetic, de Silva did more than just exploit her own exoticism. She owned it. ...

Oct 22, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged
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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 ...

Oct 21, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged , ,
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Remembrance of the first Asian woman architect in the mid 1990’s on her 104th birth anniversary Minnette de Silva: An unfinished portrait Source:sundayobserver.lk De Silva being born in Kandy, Ceylon on February 1, 1918, hailed from a well-known multi-cultured and an influential family and was the youngest of three. De Silva’s father had been a renowned key figure in the fight for independence in Ceylon while her mother had been an ardent campaigner for women’s’ right in the country. De Silva was educated at St. Mary’s in Brighton, England and after she returned to Ceylon in 1929, she then moved to Bombay, India to be trained as an architect at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Arts, since she was restricted to be trained in Colombo. De Silva received her first architectural project to build the Karunarathna house in Kandy, which became a noted turning point in de Silva’s career ...

Jan 30, 2022 Posted by In Articles Tagged , , , , , ,
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