India to undertake construction of a cultural centre in Jaffna

In a ceremony held yesterday India’s Minister for External Affairs S.M Krishna and Minister for Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa presented awards to the top three architects whose entries were selected by a jury after the completion of the National Design Competition for the Jaffna Cultural Centre, to be constructed under Indian grant assistance. 

The awards involve a prize amount of US$ 3,500 for the first prize, US$ 3,000 for the second prize and US$ 2,500 for the third.

As part of its development partnership with Sri Lanka and in response to the request by the Government of Sri Lanka, the Government of India is undertaking a Project to construct a Cultural Centre at Jaffna at an estimated cost of Rs. 900 million. In order to preserve and foster the rich cultural heritage of the Jaffna District and other nearby areas, which are replete with historical, archaeological and religious resources, it is decided to develop the Jaffna Cultural Centre as an iconic building that would serve as a cynosure of cultural activities in Northern Sri Lanka The Centre is also intended to create opportunities for cooperation amongst all Sri Lankan communities, including Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese.

The primary purpose of the Jaffna Cultural Centre would be to provide a cultural and social space for the people of Jaffna to enjoy various local and international cultural products, apart from serving as a delivery centre for training, instructions and education in a variety of cultural disciplines.  

For these purposes, the Centre would comprise a theatre-style auditorium (with projection facilities) with a capacity of about 600 people, a multi media library with on-line research facilities, exhibition and gallery space and a museum.  It would also have an instructional wing, which would have facilities for the conduct of classes in vocal and instrumental music, dance and languages, including a language lab.  It would also be able to serve as a hub for civil society activities, for which purpose it would include a conference hall-cum-seminar room.

In order to select the best design for Jaffna Cultural Centre that would take these requirements into account, it was jointly decided by both the governments to conduct a National Design Competition.

The Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (SLIA) was entrusted with the task of conducting the National Design Competition in two separate rounds. A seven-member jury, co-chaired by High Commissioner of India Ashok K. Kantha and SLIA President Ranjan Nadesapalli, one architect each from SLIA and India, one representative each from the Government of India and Sri Lanka, and the Mayor of Jaffna evaluated the entries received during the National Design Competition.  

The entries were evaluated by the jury without knowledge of the architects, through a process of assigning code numbers to each entry.

During the first round of the design competition, 29 designs were received, out of which the jury short listed eight designs for the second round of competition.  

The evaluation of these eight entries was based on a number of carefully identified criteria such as the technical acceptability, context plan, aesthetic /architectural language, space efficiency, buildabillity and environmentally friendly, sustainable architecture. At the end of the process, the jury unanimously selected the following as the best three designs:

Rank 1:  The design submitted by Archt. Madura Premathileka

Rank 2: The design submitted by Cynthia and Athula Ranasinghe Chartered Architects

Rank 3: The design submitted by Design Consortium (Pvt) Ltd.

Today, the architect whose design won the first prize presented his design before Minister Krishna and Rajapaksa.

This Project is one of the many initiatives taken by the Government of India to assist the people of Sri Lanka and will be implemented under grant assistance from the Government of India with the cooperation of the Ministry for Economic Development and the local Government.