Fifty years ago, Minnette de Silva was a leading figure in modernist architecture yet today many of her architectural creations in her native Sri Lanka are decaying and she is a somewhat forgotten figure. Why has this once-prominent figure been sidelined by history?
Born to liberal parents in Kandy, she defied parental opposition to study at the Architectural Association in post-war London in 1946 and became the first Asian woman to be registered with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), an accolade she received in the same year that Sri Lanka gained independence from the UK.
Hailed as Sri Lanka’s first modernist architect, de Silva – a close friend of Le Corbusier – returned to her native Sri Lanka in 1948 and liked to refer to herself as ‘an Asian woman architect’. Testament to her success in a male-dominated industry, she was one of only two women in the world at the time to establish an architectural practice in their own name. She gained a reputation for building ‘tropical modernist’ buildings which brought buildings and landscape together, often featuring deep verandas and spacious courtyards as central aspects of her designs.
As well as having an innate understanding of Sri Lankan architectural design, De Silva was ahead of her time in collaborating with her clients to understand exactly how they wished to live and incorporated their suggestions into her buildings. Perhaps her collaborative approach is most clearly illustrated in the housing development scheme she designed in the 1950s for public servants in Kandy, in which she held extensive consultations to determine the design of various housing types.
A strong advocate of using traditional Sri Lankan craft techniques in her work, De Silva successfully blended modernist design with artisanal techniques. She incorporated satinwood parquet floors and gold-lacquered wood balusters, as well as simple Kandyan tilework, thereby providing employment for often-underpaid artisanal tradespeople.
After a decade of regular commissions, work began to slow down for de Silva, whilst the star of her contemporary, Geoffrey Bawa, was on the rise. Like de Silva, Sri Lankan-born Bawa was educated at the Architectural Association and although de Silva’s career preceded his by a decade he was the first to be awarded the gold medal by the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects in 1982 (de Silva received her award fourteen years later).
De Silva died in 1998, at the age of 80 and her former studio and home have since fallen into disrepair as have many of the buildings she created during her life. Perhaps her most enduring legacy is the Kandy Arts Centre, built during the latter years of her working life, in the 1980s.
Over a hundred years since her birth, there are signs of renewed interest in her work; the Royal Academy is scheduling a 2019 discussion about De Silva’s life and work, exploring why her role in modernist architecture is often overlooked.