Kandy Center for Art & Culture

Kandy, Sri Lanka

The city of Kandy is the historic capital of the Kandyan Kingdom, home of lush rainforest foliage and sacred Buddhist sites, and where Kandy Center for Art and Culture (KCAC) is sited.  The project was a provocation for the cultural landscape of the region as considered through the programmatic agency of a contemporary architectural project. This inland city is a bustling metropolis located in the hilly central area of the county where one of the founders of KORA’s spent his childhood.  No highways connect directly from the airport or the capitol to this city, requiring trekking through winding country roads without immediate connection to international tourism.  The KCAC is a proposal on the outskirts of the city designed exploring a new possibility in contemporary architectural modernity for Sri Lanka.  

The project features a design integrated into the landscape standing proud of the lush greenery as a shimmering white metallic form. A large portion of the grounds is accessible to the visitor as an experience of the natural landscapes in juxtaposition to the modern building as a nod to the late architectural hero, Geoffry Bawa.   The form gives way at key moments to apertures that reveal a jewel like inner facade carving away displaying a modern take on the verandah, a space of respite from the unyielding tropical sun.  

The interior features the roof facade coming inside to create internal spaces in and around the central atrium, the main organizing element of the interior program.  The main entrance is accessed by the large entrance plaza adjacent to the vehicular dropoff. The program is a mix of an art museum as well as workshops, auditorium, retail, restaurants, and an educational center.  Instead of passive program, KORA attempts to provoke a dialogue with the city and region through the interplay of building program and the city ideally initiating cultural feedback loops that transform with time.  The effect, the architecture remains a frame for a larger urban dialogue.