The Sri Lankan Architect : Safeguarding the Quality of the Built Environment in the Current Socio - Economic and Political Environment

Abstract

The built environment of a country is an extremely sensitive indicator of its status among the countries of the rest of the world. A high quality built environment indicates the quality of the culture of that nation, thus the quality of its people. It also indicates the status of the physical development of that nation, for higher development is impossible without achieving and maintaining a high quality built environment. Architects have the primary responsibility of achieving and safeguarding the quality of the built environment of a country. Though there may be other professionals and non-professionals who are involved in the creation of the built environment, architects are seen as the traditional sentinels. In the Sri Lankan context too, it is the same. Though Sri Lanka has a proper system of training its architects and a reasonable number of practicing architects, it still can't boast of a high quality built environment. In fact the current state of the built environment of Sri Lanka, could only be described as 'pathetic'. It has a built environment that is highly unstable. Every twist and turn is the path of the nation has a pronounced impact on the built environment, thus presenting great damage to it. The built environment of Sri Lanka is not stable, because it still doesn't have a strong national style for the designers to group around. Without such a gravitational force the individual designers are easily misguided. Every little external influence could easily mislead them. Sri Lankan architects couldn't achieve such a national style due to various internal and external influences and pressures. Both attitudinal disagreements among architects and various external pressures preventing them from working towards such a style contributes to this. Whatever the steps that could be taken to Improve and safeguard the quality of the built environment of Sri Lanka must be collective efforts. The primal step to do so, which is achieving a national style, is not an individual task. The whole community of Sri Lankan architects must join hands in the battle for safeguarding the quality of the built environment of Sri Lanka.