Minnette de Silva

She was not able to train as an architect in Colombo, so she had to persuade her father and her maternal uncle Dr Andreas Nell (1864-1956) to allow her to travel to Bombay to train at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art.

As de Silva did not complete her school matriculation, equivalent to today’s Advanced Level, she had to work as an apprentice for the Bombay-based firm, Mistri and Bhedwar, where she befriended Perin Mistri and her brother Minoo.

During her apprenticeship, she returned to Sri Lanka, where she attended lectures at the Ceylon Technical College.

In Bombay she studied at a private academy run by G.B. Mhatres, where instructors included many influential practising architects such as Homi Billmoria, Yahya Merchant, and M. Parelkar.

She also assisted Shareef Mooloobhoy on his final portfolio.

de Silva was part of the cultural and political circles which included Mulk Raj Anand and Ravi Shankar and became the architectural editor for Marg, a new publication at the time on modern art and culture.

Later she enrolled at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art.

Government School of Architecture

During the time of political upheaval in India, she attended a Free Gandhi March and as a result was expelled for not writing an apology to the head of the School.

She then started working as the apprentice assistant to the émigré architect and planner Otto Koenigsberger in his office in Bangalore working on prefabricated housing for the Tata Steel City plan in Bihar.

She was there for approximately seven months.

During a brief visit to Ceylon, de Silva met Herwald Ramsbotham, the Governor-General of Ceylon, who took a keen interest in her situation and personally intervened in his capacity as head of the Education Committee in the UK and managed to arrange a place for her at the Architectural Association to allow her to take a special Royal Institute of British Architects examination for returning students for the War.

CIAM

The wedding was celebrated in 1909 at St. Paul's Church, Kandy by W. S. Senior, the bard of Sri Lanka.

Minnette de Silva (මිනට් ද සිල්වා;மினிட் டி சில்வா; 1 February 1918 – 24 November 1998) was an internationally recognised architect, considered the pioneer of the modern architectural style in Sri Lanka.

De Silva was a fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (SLIA),

Minnette de Silva was born on 1 February 1918 in Kandy, the second largest city of the island nation now known as Sri Lanka.

The country was then called Ceylon, and had been ruled by Britain as a crown colony for over a century, and before that, by the Dutch and Portuguese empires.

These and other European traders, sailors, and officials had settled there and given rise to a small Eurasian ethnic group, the Burgher people.

During British rule, they occupied a highly important place in Sri Lankan social and economic life.

Minette was born into one of these influential families.

A recent critic wrote: "In her home country, she remained an outsider due to her mixed heritage; while in the West, her beauty and clothes served to exoticise her."

Her father was George E. de Silva, a criminal barrister (proctor) at the time of her birth who then moved into politics.

Lauded as a "champion of the poor", he served as President of the Ceylon National Congress, and as a Minister of Health (his own father had been an Ayurvedic physician).

His eulogy was delivered by none other than the sometime prime minister, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who compared him to an early president of the United States: "In the mould of Abraham Lincolon [sic], he was a man who travelled from the Log Cabin to White House".

Her mother was Agnes de Silva (née Nell), a campaigner for women's rights and Sri Lankan independence.

She was "from one of the conservative Dutch families", who opposed her union to George --- indeed, the vicar refused to solemnise the marriage.

The aunt of Agnes was Winifred Nell, an "outstanding pioneer woman doctor" Agnes co-founded in 1927 the Women's Franchise Union.

to press for full suffrage (voting rights) for all women in the country.

Minette de Silva also recounts that her mother’s involvement in the Arts and Crafts Movement exposed her to various traditions that are reflected in her later work as an architect.

Minette was the youngest of five children.

Her sister Anil de Silva became an art critic and historian.

Her brother Fredrick de Silva became a lawyer and politician, serving as Mayor of Kandy, a member of Parliament, and Ambassador to France.

de Silva was first educated at the Kandy Convent at age 7 before being transferred to the Bishop’s College Boarding School in Colombo.

In 1928, her family moved to England, where she attemded St. Mary's, in Brighton. On her father’s request, she returned to Ceylon in the 1930s.

de Silva did not complete her formal education, due to circumstances related to her father’s financial crisis and political life, and her mother’s ailing health.

de Silva was also the delegate representing India-Ceylon in the Congrès Internationaux D’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) from 1946 to 1957.

She was also the first Asian representative of CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) in 1947 and was one of the founding members of the architectural publication Marg.

She was awarded the SLIA Gold Medal for her contribution to architecture, in particular her pioneering work developing a 'regional modernism for the tropics'.

De Silva was the first Sri Lankan woman to be trained as an architect and the first Asian woman to be elected an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1948.