(Ebook) Proclaiming Colonial Urban Heritage: Towards an Inclusive Heritage-interpretation for Colombo’s Past by * Professor Dr. Harsha Munasinghe ISBN 9780429053559, 9783110415278, 9781610910286, 9781315604558, 042905355X, 3110415275, 1610910281, 1315604558

(Ebook) Proclaiming Colonial Urban Heritage: Towards an Inclusive Heritage-interpretation for Colombo’s Past by * Professor Dr. Harsha Munasinghe ISBN 9780429053559, 9783110415278, 9781610910286, 9781315604558, 042905355X, 3110415275, 1610910281, 1315604558

Colombo, Sri Lanka’s commercial capital is a forceful creation of Europeancolonialists who occupied the island for over four centuries. Its urbanstructure displays the social fragmentation sought by the rulers. Colomboelaborates an extraordinary process of city-making, stratified with its Dutch-origin, British-reshaping, and post-colonial adaptation. Proclaiming such acontested past as an inheritance requires an inclusive heritage interpretation.The recent renovation of monumental buildings for potential market valuesand demolishing minor architecture do not display such a heritageinterpretation. This, placing undue attention on a selected social group, isfound to be further emptying the compartmentalized city. The exclusion ofsome sub-societies also cost possible stewardship to urban heritage. Havingobserved the non-sustainability of current heritage-interpretation practisedin Colombo, we searched for alternative means to unify societies in time-space thus sustaining the diversity of urban spaces. Our empirical studieshave established the need to integrate the inherent cultural values of thecolonial-built urban fabric in heritage interpretation. The results of vibrantheritage-interpretation results have been studied through a literature surveywith aims to contribute towards the development of an inclusive heritageinterpretation practice to protect Colombo’s colonial past sustainably.JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS (2022),6(1), 1-12.https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2022.v6n1-1