One of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated architects, Valentine Kumarasiri Gunasekara, was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), in 1931, and educated at the Royal College, Colombo. Upon leaving school he resolved to study architecture and contacted Visva Selvaratnam, then studying at the Architectural Association, London, for advice as to the best UK school to apply for. After a short period at the firm of Edward Reid and Begg (ER&B), in Columbo, working under James Nilgirya, Gunasekara enrolled for the AA’s Diploma course, joining the AA Second Year cohort in September 1952. As part of his final year’s studies he signed up for the course of the Department of Tropical Architecture, graduating in 1956 with an AA Diploma, with Honours. At the AA, Gunasekara was part of a small community of Sri Lankan architects, including Veluppillai Suppiah Thurairajah (a fellow student within the Department of Tropical Architecture in 1955-56) and, in the year below, Geoffrey Bawa. Gunasekara recalls that Minette De Silva, also an AA alumni from 1947, would also visit him in his AA studio whenever she was in London. Upon graduation, Gunasekara returned to Sri Lanka, re-joining the practice of ER&B, where both he and Geoffrey Bawa became partners in 1959. In 1966, on receipt of a Rockefeller grant, Gunasekara spent time travelling in the US, meeting a panoply of important figures including Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, Louis Khan and Paul Rudolph. He worked for six months in Eero Saarinen’s office, under Kevin Roche, before returning to Sri Lanka in 1967. Two years later, together with a group of eight ER&B employees, he left to set up his own practice, with offices on Milagiriya Avenue, Colombo. In 1975 Gunasekara relocated to St. Louis, USA, working as an associate with Theodore Jockenhoefer for a year. He then moved to Lagos, where he worked for Ekwueme Associates, Architects and Town Planners, their team designing a number of key projects including works for the ACB Bank Building, hotels in Agu and Onitsha, and buildings for the Nigerian Electric Power Authority. In 1982, he migrated to the US, taking up a position on the Architecture faculty at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, where he continued to teach until 2003. Today, revered as one of the most significant 20thC Sri Lankan architects, Gunasekara’s most important projects include his Jesuit Church, Colombo (1960), his Tangalle Bay Hotel, Tangalle (1969-1973) and his Elapata Residence, Pinkanda, Ratnapura (1970).
Sources
- Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
- Architectural Association Diploma Roll Book, 1924-1963, AA Archives
- Department of Tropical Architecture, student listing, Otto Koenigsberger Collection, Box OK27, AA Archives
- Architectural Association Members List 1961;
- RIBA Directory of Members 1969
- Pieris, A. Imagining Modernity: The Architecture of Valentine Gunasekara. Tambapanni Academic Publishers, 2007.
- Pieris, A. Architecture and nationalism in Sri Lanka: the trouser under the cloth. Routledge, 2013.
