Over-Determinations: Architecture, Text, Politics

Just moments after the architect Channa Daswatte spoke of a ‘sacredness’ inherent in good design (see Chapter 6), I asked him whether he thought there was anything at all political about tropical modernism in the context of Sri Lanka’s national question. He was vehement that there was nothing either religious or political about the materiality of the architecture itself. However, at once he stressed that the problem is that tropical modern architecture can be, and has been, one of those things that Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists latch onto, co-opt, for their own political ends; like education was, like language was. His defence