own. Although her parents would have liked her to take a reliable salaried position, she stayed in Kandy and pursued her career independently, as she had her roots there and it was the cultural and traditional centre of the nation. This was important to her as she had been brought up in an atmosphere of the patriotic political and cultural commitments of her parents to the community and the country. de Silva who as a child lived and moved among Kandyan artists and craftsmen would be taken by her parents to see the ancient Sinhalese architecture of the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa periods. Like her parents, she was greatly influenced by Ananda Coomaraswamy, who advocated for the preservation of the traditional arts and crafts, local craftsmen and the building methods and materials, and would be one of the first Sri Lankan architects to become a patron of the local craftsmen. She would develop her own style of architecture which is still apparent in the Sri Lankan architecture of today, and would be one of the first architects to incorporate building knowledge acquired in the West with that of Sri Lanka and India. Her first building would be the Karunaratne House in Kandy. The 1949 commission came from friends of her parents Algy, who was a lawyer, and Letty Karunaratne, who asked her to build a house for Rs 40,000. She prepared plans for a split level house for a site on a hill, the first of a kind in Kandy. It was the first building designed by a woman in Sri Lanka and attracted much attention and controversy. She had to tackle many problems early on as a result of being the first and only woman architect in Sri Lanka. The fact that she worked independently in a male dominated sector, without a male partner nor an established firm, rendered distrust of contractors, businesses, the government and architectural patrons. After completing the Karunaratne house in 1951, the rest of the 1950s would be de Silva's busiest decade throughout her career. Travels (1962–1973) In 1962 de Silva's mother died and she subsequently suffered from bouts of ill health and depression. Throughout the 1960s she travelled, spending long periods away from Sri Lanka and allowing her practice to falter. Her career started to decline just as Geoffrey Bawa began his. In 1960 de Silva left Sri Lanka for 5 years, calling it her