Papers

• From Palace to Parliament: How Indonesia and Singapore moved from Imperial to Colonial to Representation Rule through the lens of their Parliament Buildings Ian Lewis University of Amsterdam

  From royal palace to people’s parliament, what has the role of architecture been in the journey from one type of governance to another? This paper aims to reflect on the meaningful transition of power through the lens of parliament buildings in two Southeast Asian capitals: Jakarta and Singapore.

  The grand dynasties of Java and the Indonesian archipelago were in decline or extinct when the Europeans landed on their shores. The small nation of The Netherlands gradually gained the upper hand. Settling on Batavia, today’s Jakarta, as their capital, Dutch architecture was introduced and remains in use today. A ‘Brasília-look’ modern structure instigated by Sukarno as an alternative to the United Nations, was commandeered by Suharto for a parliament building and completed in 1968.

  Though Singapore can trace its origins further in time, often history narrates the story of the Englishman, Raffles, as the founder of the now city-state with its British colonial architecture. One of these buildings, a Neo-Palladian mansion, was acquired for the legislative council self-government in 1955 before full independence a decade later. Under the guiding hand of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore bided its time and continued to reside in the acquired house, before constructing its own conformist building in 1999.

  What were the meanings evoked in these buildings? How should we try to interpret their symbolic meanings? Who were the influential actors? Exploring the location, design, decoration and use of these buildings, we can observe the changing political epoch of the second half of the twentieth century which witnessed the demise of direct Western influence in and the rise of Southeast Asia, and how these buildings endure as symbols of governance and power both then and now.

• Railway Architecture as Representation: Building Modernity in the Dutch East Indies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Arida Fitriana Yasmin University of Groningen

  Railway architecture, together with the rapid advancement of rail infrastructure since the early nineteenth century, has become a significant symbol of modernity and progress. Representation was constructed through the erection of station architecture which not only became an epitome of the architectural movements in the respective era but also reflected the image of the companies carrying the services. The Netherlands finally joined its neighbouring countries to open the first railway line in 1839, and a few decades later, in its major colony: the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia. Although the first railways were run by a private company, since its existence in 1875, the state railway company (Staatspoorwegen-SS) continued to gradually dominate the service that created the basis of the extensive railway network in the country today. While utilizing the railway as a tool of empire, the construction of public buildings including railway stations offered a new bureaucratic and political approach as a means of creating order in public space and constructing the modernized civic structure. Albeit the early approach to copy the European style, later in the twentieth century, Dutch-trained architects adapted Western knowledge by incorporating local elements into station buildings and making them more accessible. Although, not only the layout, style and ornamentation but also its collective composition in the urban fabric hold an important role. This study will focus on major cities served by the SS service on the island of Java such as Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Malang. By drawing analytical discussion on the approaches imposed in the Netherlands Indies, this paper seeks to explore the way the Dutch colonial administration dealt with building a representative railway architecture not only as a celebration of the triumph of Western industrial technology but also as a symbol of modern society they tried to establish overseas.

• Deconstructing the Canon: Nusantaran Architecture as a Political Statement in Indonesia’s Architectural Identity Construction Rr. Diah Asih Purwaningrum (Roro) Institut Teknologi Bandung

  In the 1980s, when the term Indonesian Architecture was problematised for its vagueness and unclarity, a new conception of Nusantaran Architecture was launched. It promoted an alternative direction in representing the country’s national identity, intending to focus on what is deemed pristine, pre-existing and apolitical ‘culture’. After staying dormant for decades, the term reappeared in the public discussion in 2011 and regained significance nationwide. Since then, Nusantaran Architecture has been adopted by the national government as a slogan for architectural representation of the country’s identity and as jargon for the country’s national tourism agenda.

  The term Nusantaran Architecture was extensively employed in the Ten New Bali tourism project, which was recently narrowed down to Five Super Priority Destinations. This ambitious project elucidated the central government’s intention to promote the idea of ‘authentic’ Indonesia by using traditional architecture as the source of ideas to represent contemporary Indonesia. This Nusantaran Architecture project also displayed the President’s favour in shaping the architectural identity of the country, showed in his support of the Nusantaran Architecture Design Competition Series, promoting ideas to contemporise the traditional architecture to fit tourism needs.

  This presentation discusses the contestation of Indonesia’s architectural identity through Nusantaran Architecture as a political practice. Power domination was at play in orchestrating the construction of Nusantaran Architecture. Not only has it created a significant distance from the people, as if identity representation is crafted to serve only some group of people with power, but Nusantaran Architecture has also been shaped to be an instrument for a capitalistic business. Deconstructing the canonical conceptions of Nusantaran Architecture is critically needed to bring back the dynamic in imagining the country’s architectural identity.

Abstract