Enduring symbol of Colombo University
The majestic College House down Thurstan Road – a whimsical marriage between an English country house and a Maharajah’s haveli with its conical roofs, turrets and slender carved wooden columns, is for the historian a relic of a bygone age. Originally called ‘Regina Walawwa’, in time the house would be renamed College House and become [...]
Take a walk through the lungs of Kandy, Udawattekele
“When the first Indo-Aryan settlers of the Island did ascend the lower hills of the highlands and stumbled on the lush, well watered valleys and began establishing settlements there, Udawattekale came to be the starting point from where the ancient village of Senkadagala arose, the Asgiri Upatha states.” (Nihal Karunaratne, Udawattekale – The Forbidden Forest [...]
Gall Face Green 2022
This is the green that has seen one world end and another begin many times over many years: a kickstart show in the thirties, sunrise warplanes rebuffed at Easter, bare heads in ’56, bowed, beaten, unbent. Then, three years ago, those fused rucksacks turned it all inside out through a fault that at its core [...]
Letters to the Editor
Taking heed of the ‘Vox populi’ is the need of the hour Sri Lanka today is undergoing an unprecedented upheaval clamouring for a drastic system change calling the corrupted, impotent rulers to ‘pick up the gauntlet’. The ‘Galle Face revolt’ has emerged without an ad-hoc leader or any other party-affiliated forces, and some tag it [...]
Appreciations
Sri Sumangala Girls’ School will forever be in debt to this pioneering principal Malini Ranasooriya Malini Ranasooriya – the first Sri Lankan Principal of Sri Sumangala Girls’ School, Panadura, who passed away on January 28, was one of Panadura’s distinguished personalities. She was born on September 25, 1926, a few days before the Sri Sumangala [...]
A wooden bridge, an iron house, and Barbara then…
So Barbara has ridden off into the sunset, on her white horse, after “a hard day’s night” leaving behind memories of the times when she was a person, not an icon, and very good company indeed. Those memories reach back 60 years. In 1962 I was the only unmarried officer, in our ‘ship’ in Diyatalawa [...]
‘Encounters’: More time to view Rotation 1 exhibits
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka (MMCA Sri Lanka) has extended Rotation 1 of its current exhibition ‘Encounters’ until May 22. The three artworks that provide the starting points for Rotation 1 include one painting by Senaka Senanayake (b. 1951) and two paintings by George Keyt (1901–1993) titled ‘The Friends’ (1982) and [...]
Internationally known South African architect to deliver Bawa Memorial Lecture
The 2021 Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture will be delivered by South African architect Sumayya Vally – principal architect of the inter-disciplinary architectural studio Counterspace on Thursday, May 12, at the Bawa-designed Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo 7 at 6.30 p.m. The annual event organised by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust coincides with Bawa’s [...]