Post-structural possibilities in architectural design: deconstruction as a strategy to start architecture of postcolonial knowledge and ideology

Abstract

Architecture is politically powerful, and its interdisciplinary nature makes it rich and colourful. Postcolonial critique is one of the ways that one could look at and understand architecture and the built environment of post-independent Sri Lanka. By looking at architecture and architectural approaches through a postcolonial eye, one can see the remains of colonial dichotomies of colonials finding their other in indigenous people. Deconstruction, introduced by Jacques Derrida, understands that the logocentric vision is violent. Deconstruction is commonly used in reading and interpreting subtexts of literary texts, although there is an architectural style called ‘deconstructionism’. The deconstructive strategy leads to questioning the ideological approaches toward architectural designs considered as “good architecture” especially in postcolonial situations like Sri Lanka, where the most prominent architectural narratives are highly elite and colonial. And from pedagogical aspects, “problem-solving” architectural approaches are privileged in which the vernacular-inspired buildings are appreciated. In a postcolonial critique, these attempts are remnants of the colonial gaze on indigenous groups of people. This paper examines the ideological issue of the post-independent era architecture of Sri Lanka by using deconstruction and also suggests deconstruction as a way of approaching architecture of postcolonial ideology.