Refugio para Artistas en Pittugala. Obra publicada en El Croquis 212 Palinda Kannangara 2005 2022. Fot.: Jesús Granada.
The Visceral Qualities of Architecture
A Conversation with Palinda Kannangara
by Richard Murphy
Text published in El Croquis 212 Palinda Kannangara 2005 2022
Richard Murphy: I want to inevitably start off with your origins. As you know, some very interesting architects don’t necessarily start off wanting to be architects. I read in Anura Ratnavibhushana’s essay for this issue of El Croquis that you were a maths-inclined boy at school. And I know Geoffrey (Bawa) went to law school. First of all, how relevant has your love of mathematics been in your career? Has it found its way into your buildings somehow?
Palinda Kannangara: Mathematics and art were two subjects that I enjoyed in my childhood and through school. As a child I would draw for hours and build towers by folding discarded lottery tickets. Even now, my work table has mathematical puzzles that I use during quick breaks. Observing my interest in that area, my mother’s aspiration for me was to do architecture. So in my case, that interest in maths was the vehicle that helped me to find my path.
Initially I was selected to study Physical Sciences with a specialization in Mathematics at the Colombo University, which was a free education institution. But although I enjoyed the course, I always felt that my path lay elsewhere. During my time in the Science Faculty, I made life-long friends. One of them has been an excellent client and patron who not only gave me my first project, Ginigatthena Bungalow & Hydropower Plant, but then several other memorable projects as well (Leisure Pavilion, Avissawella Bunglow, Ratnapura Bungalow and recent hydro projects in Sri Lanka and Africa). That feeling led me to opt for a place in the Architecture program at the City School of Architecture during the second year of my mathematics degree. By then my mother had passed away, and I only had money to pay for one year’s tuition. All the same, I took a chance by joining the course and studied both programs simultaneously. That was when I felt I had found my calling.
So to answer your question, for me mathematics was not only a means to eventually discover my path in Architecture, but it has also enriched my practice. Although my approach to design tends to be an uncomplicated one based as much on rationale and logic as the visceral qualities of architecture, mathematics provides me with an ability to simplify and to be reductive, to take quick, rational decisions, and to experiment with structure, amongst other aspects.
Let’s talk about your work process. You and I are from the generation who were taught how to draw with a pencil, a set square and a T-square and also how to make projections. How do you feel today?
Having obtained my architectural charter in 2004 and started independent practice in 2005, at the cusp of the era of digital drawing, I am comfortable with and use both techniques.
You have young architects in your office who are from a different generation. Do they draw first, or do they go straight to a computer? I’m asking that because I worry that people don’t think by drawing any more.
Drawing as a form of thinking is really important to the design process in our practice as well. I work a lot with sketches and models, especially sketches related to the project site. The team in the office builds and further develops the physical models on the basis of those initial sketches and drawings. They also work well with sketches, hand drawing formats and models, which are crucial to our process, prior to developing any of them on the computer.
Hand drawings have the potential to succinctly encapsulate a certain moment &mdasha mood, a scale, light and shadow&mdash but they also capture the feeling and depth that we want to embody in our work, which often digital drawings cannot. That’s why we believe less in three-dimensional rendered images and more in developing the design on the basis of a series of site-sketched details and physical models built in the office. Having a largely site-based approach to designing, our drawings tend to encompass what those site sketches capture &mdashnumerous site-development sketches and details that remain at the core of how we represent and work.
Unlike the West, where drawings are frozen prior to the construction process, we continue to develop the design in the course of the construction process. This gives us time to think more about the design and allow it to mature.
Text published in El Croquis 212 Palinda Kannangara 2005 2022 . Available on our website on print and digital edition.