Histories from Colonial Fragments in Contemporary Colombo with Pamudu T.

Join architectural and urban historian Pamudu Tennakoon for a discussion on how Colombo’s colonial architecture continues to influence negotiations of the city’s history.

The recent surge of interest and investment in colonial architecture in Colombo demonstrates that colonial architecture still provides the backdrop for negotiations of the city’s history. This talk closely explores the De Soysa building, a recently demolished shophouse complex in the neighborhood of Kompagngna Veediya. Refracting multiple historical narratives of this building (which now exists as rubble), this talk questions how people continue to occupy and relate to the material remnants of their colonial pasts. Ultimately, this work pushes against the discomfort present in allowing archival, oral, and artistic narratives alongside each other to underscore the importance of reconciling these histories.

Pamudu Tennakoon is an architectural and urban historian who holds a PhD in History of Art and Architecture and an MA in Anthropology from Brown University. In January, she will be joining the Colombo: Layered Histories in a Global South City project at Cambridge University as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.