The Sigiriya Royal Gardens

The Sigiriya Royal Gardens

Cooray, J.N.

Steenbergen, C.M. (promotor)
De Jong, E.A. (promotor)

Architecture

Urbanism

2012-11-13

Besides the efforts that are of a descriptive and celebrative nature, studies related to Sri Lanka’s historical built heritage largely view material remains in historical, sociological, socio-historical and semiological perspectives. There is hardly any serious attempt to view such material remains from a technical-analytical approach to understand the compositional aspects of their design. The 5th century AC royal complex at Sigiriya is no exception in this regard. The enormous wealth of information and the material remains unearthed during more than 100 years of field-based research by several generations of archaeologists provide an ideal opportunity for such analysis. The present study aims, therefore, to fill the gap in research related to Sri Lanka’s historical built heritage in general, and to Sigiriya in particular. Therefore, the present research attempts to read Sigiriya as a landscape architectonic design to expose its architectonic composition and design instruments. The study, which is approached from a technicalanalytical point of view, follows a methodological framework that was developed at the Landscape Design Department of the Faculty of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology. The study reveals that the architectonic design of Sigiriya constitutes multiple design layers and multiple layers of significance with materialspatial- metaphorical-functional coherence, and that it has both general and unique landscape architectonic elements, aspects, characteristics and qualities. The richness of its composition also enables the identification of the landscape architectural value of Sigiriya, which will help reshape policies related to conservation and presentation of Sigiriya as a heritage site, as well as to its protection and management as a green monument. The positive results of the study also underline that the methodology adopted in this research provides a framework for the study of other examples of historical gardens and landscapes in Sri Lanka, which will eventually provide insight into the typological aspects of a possible Sri Lankan tradition of landscape design.

Sigiriya
heritage
landscape architecture
landscape design
gardens

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e8e73d28-7bd9-4bec-9c30-e703f79513a4

TU Delft

2012-11-12

9781480030978

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2012 Cooray, J.N.