It was with shock and dismay that I read in your newspaper that No. 5 Alfred Place is to be sold, hopefully to be relocated in Moratuwa. This house is the finest example of Geoffrey Bawa’s residential designs, and is a landmark in international architecture.
I and three architect colleagues from India had the privilege of living at No. 5 for two and a half years, from 1980 to 1983. Christopher, Venkat, Jeevan and I were working for Geoffrey Bawa on the Kotte Parliamentary Complex, as well as other projects being handled by the Bawa studio.
Geoffrey wanted Indian architects to work on this project. From his work experience in India, he felt that Indian architects were more culturally sensitive than Western architects, and that they had the experience to work on big, complex projects. Ena de Silva, the owner of the house, later became a lifelong friend. Her house holds very special memories for all of us, for whom it was a second home.
Ena, who was living abroad at the time, had left the house filled with her magnificent collection of antique furniture, providing a superb setting for Geoffrey and his team to work on his most important brief, the new Parliamentary Complex at Kotte.
The living room of this extraordinary house was the studio space in which the Parliament project was conceptualised and designed.
Vasantha, who headed the team, and Ranjan from the main studio (now the Gallery Café) completed the group. From time to time, kindred souls would join us at No. 5.
No. 5 was also where the architects interacted with the technical team from Mitsui Construction Company, the Japanese contractors engaged for the project. Their presence enriched the international flavour of our meetings.
All the drawings done for the project were redrawn by the Mitsui team as Japanese shop drawings. This taxed our linguistic skills and patience to the maximum.
We had a tight time-frame for our project, and we would often work into the wee hours, usually downing copious quantities of coconut arrack and international spirits, including Japanese whiskey, courtesy of Kondo and Sakurai, Mitsui’s project architects. On one occasion, a jerrican of Dankotuwa Special, gifted by a kindly soul, generated a night of bacchanalian merriment – but no drawings!
Living and working at No. 5 was a unique experience. The house was a hive of creativity, resounding with laughter, thanks in part to Geoffrey’s ready wit, which made this a “fun” project, to use Geoffrey’s own words. Working with Geoffrey and travelling along the meandering paths of his magical mind, was bliss. We were later joined by two Scottish architect students, Rupert and Simon, who added to the merriment that throbbed at No. 5. It was truly paradise.
The house, with its massive grinding stones, columns of solid satinwood (which were originally transported to the building site by elephants) is a delightful story that is best told by Ena.
The magic of No. 5 lies in the rare combination of architect and artist client (Ena is a distinguished artist in her own right) working together on the design and construction of the house. Their combined artistic genius produced an architectural masterpiece.
It is a great pity that No. 5 can no longer remain where it was conceived and built. It will be a monumental task to dismantle and reassemble the house. And would it be possible to transplant the trees and plants that are part of the special character of the house? I think not, but I wish those undertaking this exercise well.
The fate of No. 5 only highlights how poorly the state protects the country’s architectural heritage. Sri Lanka has no equivalent to the British National Trust or the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), which list and protect heritage buildings in the UK and India.
Sri Lanka’s urban planners would do well to make a serious study of the concept of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), widely observed in major Indian cities, such as Bombay. Under the TDR arrangement, a landowner whose property includes a valuable heritage structure can sell his property development rights to a builder, who can use the extra floor space index (FSI) elsewhere, and thus save the heritage structure.
It is too bad that a host of wonderful buildings in Sri Lanka, especially in Colombo, have disappeared over the last two decades.
It is not too late for the community of Sri Lanka architects and the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects to engage themselves in the critically important task of listing and preserving Sri Lanka’s architectural heritage.
This heritage includes not only buildings from antiquity but also the country’s wealth of colonial and post-colonial architecture, the latter best exemplified by the work of Geoffrey Bawa.
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