Perching lightly on the landscape
When the judges of the 5th Triennial Geoffrey Bawa Awards for Excellence in Architecture 2019/2021 waxed lyrical, enthusing about the winning entry, one realizes the decision may well have been unanimous. The award was announced on Thursday evening, with the ceremony organised by the Bawa Trust being held on Zoom. Speaking about Palinda Kannangara’s the [...]
Honourable Mention
Three of the eight shortlisted entries for the Geoffrey Bawa Awards for Excellence in Architecture 2019/2021 were singled out for Honourable Mention by the judges. They are: RAPA Chartered Architects -Café UFO, Ella Feat.Collective- The Lanka Learning Centre, Parangiyamadu Associate Professorship of Architectural Design & Timber Construction -Santhi Children Home, Rakwana
Lifetime Contribution to Architecture awards
Three grand old men of Sri Lankan architecture, who set the tone and blazed trails for generations to come, were recognized at the Bawa Awards with lifetime contribution awards; two of them posthumously. Laki Senanayake (1937-2021), was informed of the impending honour just before his sad demise in May and as Chairman of the Bawa [...]
Ruchira to chair WAGGGS, an honour for SL after 1960
Sri Lankan Ruchira Jayasinghe has been accorded the honour of chairing the 37th World Conference of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) that will be held virtually from July 27 to 31. Ms. Jayasinghe, a National Executive Committee member of the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association (SLGGA), has been a member [...]
Appreciations
He stayed true to the blue and gold all his life Gamini Edirisinghe Gamini Edirisinghe, 75, passed away very peacefully at his home in Kalyani Road, Colombo 6 a few days ago. His dear wife Roshi told me she had been preparing him for a morning bath when he suddenly felt short of breath and [...]
Kingsley moves away from brush and easel
For young Kingsley Gunatillake, the back wall of their rambling old house in Wadduwa was an ample canvas, where he riddled the limewash with the spiky doodling of his young, unbridled imagination- all done in charcoal nipped from the kitchen. His artistic efforts, says Kingsley, were neither praised nor put down when discovered days later. [...]
Colourful pages from Dutch Ceylon
Footprints is a historical novel that begins in Galle, for that is where author Premini Amerasinghe’s long ago ancestor hops off from the ship Laprienenburg, “one cloudless June day in 1760”. He was from Saxony and had a few plans for the future in his young head. As the novel wends on however, Jan Spittel [...]
The Lost Forts: Where they were and what was their fate
This month’s National Trust lecture will be delivered online on Thursday, July 29 at 6.30 p.m. by H. M. Chryshane Mendis on “The Lost Forts of the VOC”. The period of the VOC or the Dutch East India Company in Sri Lanka, begins from around the mid-17th century till the end of the 18th century, [...]
The music of the rain
Look, sister, look! Isn’t that the rain that’s a-coming? Roaring, roaring, rolling over rocks and trees, Hard blows the wind; Hard strikes the lightning; Loud roars the thunder; Black turns the sky – Isn’t it the rain that’s a-coming? (Suriya Shankar Molligoda sang this, in Sinhala) Yes, the rains have now come. In majesty.And it [...]