True Sri Lankan style

By Smriti Daniel

Laughter ripples across the room as, in true Sri Lanka style, nobody allows the rain crashing down outside to slow the party. As architects, interior designers and owners of the houses featured in the glossy book ‘Sri Lanka Style’ rub shoulders with the author, photographer and publishers, the cocktail reception at Barefoot, held to launch Channa Daswatte and Dominic Sansoni’s recent offering is in full swing.

The book has been three years in the making, reveals Channa, renowned architect and author of ‘Sri Lanka Style’.

Packed with beautiful photographs, courtesy Dominic Sansoni, the book celebrates the island’s unique architecture and distinctive style in which ‘thick lime-washed walls, tall windows and doors, terracotta or granite floors, open pavilions and verandas, courtyard gardens, elaborately carved furniture and vibrant handlooms’ all make their appearance. Channa and Dominic explore the origins of Sri Lanka’s characteristic architecture, surveying over thirty architectural masterpieces – ranging from private residences both traditional and modern to resorts and retreats.

Reflecting on how people threw open their homes to the duo, Dominic reveals that amazingly none of the photographs in the book have been ‘styled’. ‘Sri Lanka Style’ is particularly noteworthy, adds Dominic for its coverage of a few seminal houses – such as the Alfred Place House and also for the pages devoted to previously unseen buildings designed by Geoffrey Bawa.

The book has been organised into four sections, namely Vernacular and Colonial Inspirations, Island Eclecticism, Contemporary Interpretations and Retreats and Resorts. There is, however, one thing all these buildings have in common. They are wonderfully and innately Sri Lankan. In the end, this is a book about much more than architecture. It is a tribute to a way of life that has evolved over the millennia, and to the people who both preserve and add to the simple yet inimitable ‘Sri Lanka Style’.

Published by the Periplus Publishing Group ‘Sri Lanka Style’ is available in all leading bookshops.