De Soysa Building
- Slave Island
Most of the buildings in Slave Island or Kompannaveediya, Colombo share common features; sweeping arches, and intricate woodwork interwoven with metal embellishments. The best examples of this Victorian style of architecture include the railway station and the De Soysa building.Built in the late 1870s by the famed philanthropist, Charles Henry de Soysa — the wealthiest Ceylonese of the 19th century — De Soysa building is one of the heritage structures in the epicentre of the city that has been marked for demolition.For years, the De Soysa building was largely run down. The paint peeled, the hollow walls have become a haven for mice, the roof leaked and the stairs creak. Its compartmentalised spaces — originally intended to function as a two-storeyed block for shophouses, with shops on the ground floor and residential spaces on the first floor — housed generations of families, who lived here their whole lives. A number of small businesses, shops and homes built decades ago within the unrefurbished walls of the De Soysa building, continued to flourish, until the day it collapsed. The part of its eastern quarters collapsed in June 2021, resulting in authorities quickening the process to demolish the building. Within weeks, the building was no longer there, demolished to pave the way for yet another redevelopment project within the city.
