Idea 386 of 500. Cluster 19: Heritage, archives and film
Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas
The mechanism, from the book
Eight World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
Every idea in cluster 19 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Find one owner of an old villa or a building inside a fort who needs repairs, and offer a written survey of what is original, what is damaged and what proper restoration would cost. Charge a modest fee for the survey. One paid survey, and one owner who asks for a price to do the work, is the start of the firm.
- Who pays first
- The owner of a heritage villa or boutique hotel who wants restoration done correctly, not modern repairs that destroy the value.
- What leaves today
- Old buildings are patched with cement or left to fall; a skilled restoration firm keeps both the heritage value and the skills on the island.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
More from cluster 19
- 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
- 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
- 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
- 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
- 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
- 387Galle Fort as a managed heritage site, run with the residents
Idea 386 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.