Panini Tennekoon

He died on 16 July 2007, at the age of 85, and was buried at Borella Cemetery.

In 1979 he became the chief architect of the Greater Colombo Development Authority (now known as the Urban Development Authority). Between 1991 and 1993, he was the consultant architect of the Architectural Unit of the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau, where he was responsible for preparing the development scheme and master plan for the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children, and designing of the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau premises. Tennekoon is credited with giving architecture a more central role in a culture of public commissions that were heavily centred in engineering, and using perspectival drawings to convey the importance of aesthetic aspects of buildings.

In 1958, Tennekoon returned to Sri Lanka and was appointed assistant architect in the Public Works Department. In 1977, he was appointed as the chief architect. During his tenure at the Public Works department he was responsible for designing the National Library, Colombo (1976); Bandaranaike Samadhi, Horogolla; Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake's memorial, Colombo; Supreme Court Complex in Hulftsdorp (1978); Siyane Teacher Training College; teaching hospital complex at the Colombo South Hospital, Kalubowila; Kollupitiya police station; and the Department of National Archives.

He then joined an apprentice course in architecture run by Peradeniya University architect, Shirley de Alwis, in 1945. He was selected to join a five-year course at the Bartlett School of Architecture but decided not to travel to England and join the course due to the adverse living conditions in London at the end of the Second World War. In 1955, upon winning a Colombo Plan Scholarship to the School of Architecture at the University of Melbourne, he completed the five-year course in only three years, graduating in 1958 with a Graduate Diploma in Architectural Design. He was the first Asian to win the Wunderlich Annual Prize given by the school in recognition of general excellence by students.

Panini Tennekoon (5 February 1922 – 16 July 2007) was a renowned Sri Lankan architect. He spent most of his career as a public servant, working in the Public Works Department, serving as the country's chief architect, before running his own architectural practice, designing low-cost housing and investigating sustainable timber use in construction. He was a fellow of Sri Lankan Institute of Architects and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.