Performing in Landscape: Emerging Vernacular, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This paper examines how place emerges by ‘performing place’ in natural landscape locations, in order to discover relationships between natural place and cultural place. By examining the issue in new developments in the case of Kandy city in Sri Lanka, the research discusses how traditional built forms are shaped by natural features/ locations and performances and sustains vernacular architecture within this relationship. The study considers the role of historical, mythical, and religious narratives in the creation (‘or production’) of place, focusing on the ‘performance’ of the place through the regular re-enactment of ritual activities and events that ‘take place’ in Kandy. It is seen that, ‘place’ is unfolded within a ‘cultural drama’; a ‘performative model’, which narrates in relation to natural landscape. It takes the position that people are actors, and by their daily / weekly / annual historical, religious and mythical ritual processes ‘performing place’ emerges. Cultural place is the theater created by this performance and people re-experience the place and its dynamic nature in the natural – cultural setting: both visibly and invisibly. In Kandy, the vernacular architecture, emerging within this process in material culture, reflecting sense of self, landscape and cultural performance is unique. The experience of natural place in Kandy is an ‘intimate inside’, reflected in performances, dwelling patterns, built forms and in the cultural place.