Hi my fellow Architectural lovers,
Firstly I want to say Merry Christmas to my fellow Hivers. I believe you are enjoying this festival season much better. Since last month, when I was traveling through a certain area, I started researching about the architectural features there. Before that, I only looked at the beauty of nature, people's life and topographic features. Architecture is a beautiful field that can be studied by anyone. For the past three weeks, I even found and read books on old Dutch architecture. Not only was I able to gain additional knowledge, but I was also able to gain an understanding of history. So, after carefully monitoring all the facts, collecting photos, I am struggling to give you an additional understanding. I am doing all this while doing a full time job.
Nupe area is very close to Matara city and is a place full of buildings with cultural values. As soon as they think of Nupe, many people think of the old Welada building built according to Dutch architecture. It is a long and wide building. It looks like this is a place where many items were sold in the past. It used to be the old Dutch trading center and also had an antiquarian bookshop. Accordingly, those books can be bought and used to learn past history. The entire story behind these can be learned from those books.
An iron fence has been built around this old Dutch building. It is made in an arrow-shaped way without any big gaps along the length. It is clear that the fence must have been built recently for security because there is no door inside the building. There was also a place where wooden goods were sold.
The roof of this old building was an old type of small tiles found in Sri Lanka. The roof sheets have not been changed to maintain the historical value in the past. The fact that the roof is built on exposed concrete pillars in white adds to the safety of the wide roof. Typical patterns can be seen in concrete towers. An old wood carving has been used for Vahalkada.
You can clearly see that this is a long building. There are very few buildings of Old Dutch architecture without doors and windows. The interior of this old Dutch trading center building can also be viewed from the road as it is completely open. A few small fort-like chambers were also built above the roof. It is also a unique architectural feature.
Spread over an open area without windows, concrete pillars can also be seen inside this building. As I have mentioned in the previous content, the Dutch buildings built in the past colonial times are painted white and yellow. White color is everywhere in this mall. The brown color is kept for the things built around the roof.
As in other countries, the fact that all religious shrines have been built in every city in Sri Lanka is a great help to religious cooperation. Called St. Mary's Church, this church was also built during the Dutch rule using their architectural techniques. It is said that this has a history of more than five hundred years. However, this is still standing strong and increasing the city's prestige.
Seeing the architecture outside St. Mary's Church reminds me of my school days. This style of architecture could also be seen in the church that was built during the British colonial period, which was built at the same time as St. Aloysius College. Made of black stone, the exterior looks more attractive. It makes me wonder if it is a traditional Catholic feature to have a flower in the center of St. Mary's Church. If you are reading this, if you know about it, I kindly ask you to inform me with facts. It will surely expand my knowledge. The shapes of the windows are proportional to those found in other Catholic churches.
On one side of St. Mary's Church, a statue of Jesus Christ was held by Mother Mary as a child, covered with glass and placed in a concrete pillar. It can be seen in a yellow Dutch building next to it. I don't really know if it belongs to the church grounds.
You may remember that I mentioned earlier that there are all religious shrines that reflect religious harmony in all parts of Sri Lanka. Accordingly, a Buddhist temple can be seen in this area as well. It appears that this one, which was called Sri Sudarshi Vidyatana Piriven temple, was built recently. The temple wall has been freshly painted. Above we can see the Bodhi tree which we worship and around it is built a gold plated fence. The Bodhi tree is also not very old. Even though it is a new temple, omniscient relics are enshrined.
The carvings at the entrance of the Sri Sudarshi Vidyatana Piriven temple are somewhat similar to the features of the Utpalavanna Sri Vishnu temple that I presented earlier. But the dragons and devils that were at the top of the temple are not included here. They may not have been included because it is a shrine that only worships the Buddha himself. The above positions for the sun and the moon are allocated according to the positions of those objects in astrology.
Next I turned my attention to medium-sized restaurants built using various architectural techniques. In fact, every building is built according to a plan and a proper architectural method. Therefore, every modern and old building has its own unique architecture. All you have to do is explore to discover their wonderful features. The location of an old building called Indian Space does not have many special features when viewed from a distance. But if you look closely, you can see a beautiful pattern painted in white on the main door and windows. Behind the Grand, all the shapes of the hotel are raised into a rectangular shape.
The restaurant called Ambasewana did not have a special architecture, but the old building just outside it had an antique value. Jethunge Sea View Inn is an accommodation and restaurant facility. They serve unique drinks like pot of tea, coffee, ice coffee, lime juice, lime soda. I wanted to mention to show you that the verandah areas of those floors are attractively arranged. The blue color painted on the windows is sure to mesmerize the visitors.
Going further, we saw a small Buddhist shrine with carvings of elephants. But it is not popular. Elephants are most prominent in Sri Lankan temple architecture so I photographed them.
Another two of glorious buildings I found while our travel. Both buildings has modern architecture design. So I don't want to explain much about it because you know modern architectural designs. Next time I'llcome with different architectural carvings in my state.
