Join us at Tenderbooks for the London launch of Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi’s incisive introduction to the practice of Sri Lankan modernist architect Minnette De Silva via the intersecting concerns that shaped her work. Anooradha will be in conversation with Chris Moffat, Senior Lecturer in South Asian History and Queen Mary University of London, followed by a book signing.
Free to attend
Tuesday 1 April
18:00-20:00
Tenderbooks
6 Cecil Court
London WC2N 4HE
About Minnette De Silva: Intersections
When Minnette De Silva founded the Studio of Modern Architecture in Kandy, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), in 1947, she was one of the first women in the world to establish a professional architectural practice as sole principal. Today, she is known for her designs and constructions of private residences and public institutions, settlement planning, experiments in building and handicraft, research, curation, and writing. Her practice treated architecture as a lived experience and a contemporary expression of heterogeneous pasts.
Minnette De Silva: Intersections offers a richly illustrated critical introduction to De Silva’s practice, exploring a range of projects through the intersecting intellectual concerns that shaped her work. Archival materials, drawings, photographs, and extracts from De Silva’s memoir, The Life and Work of an Asian Woman Architect, describe her diverse work in a career situated in Sri Lanka and informed by substantial engagements with India, England, Greece, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Drawing on modernist architectural techniques and material heritage practices, De Silva forged a distinctive, critically engaged aesthetic program and set of values. This book by architectural historian Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, researched with Methmini Kariyakarawana and others, offers a primer to the thought and production of one of the twentieth century’s most significant architects and cultural figures.
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