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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281003921 Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia Article in ABE Journal · February 2013 DOI: 10.4000/abe.372 CITATIONS 13 READS 1,878 1 author: Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Workshop ‘Historical Data for Heritage Conservation’ View project Repository for sources on European colonial built architecture View project P.K.M. van Roosmalen Delft University of Technology 71 PUBLICATIONS 90 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE All content following this page was uploaded by P.K.M. van Roosmalen on 13 October 2015. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. ABE Journal 3 (2013) Colonial today ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Avertissement Le contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive de l'éditeur. 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Référence électronique Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen, « Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia », ABE Journal [En ligne], 3 | 2013, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2014, consulté le 29 juin 2015. URL : http:// abe.revues.org/372 ; DOI : 10.4000/abe.372 Éditeur : Laboratoire InVisu CNRS/INHA (USR 3103) http://abe.revues.org http://www.revues.org Document accessible en ligne sur : http://abe.revues.org/372 Document généré automatiquement le 29 juin 2015. CC 3.0 BY Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia 2 ABE Journal, 3 | 2013 Pauline K.M. van Roosmalen Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia 1 Colonial built heritage is a multifaceted and sensitive subject. The colonial context arouses political and ideological reactions, often characterised by a mixture of condemnation, disregard, embarrassment, and inactivity. The dual parenthood of the buildings, shared by colonized and colonizer, is a key issue. Although for a long time this was true for the colonial built heritage in Indonesia, over the last two decades, the situation has changed radically. Because colonial buildings are tactile, frequently striking, and sometimes dominant, they have proved to be an accessible and effective channel for visualising the colonial past and familiarising the public with it. As a result, the negative outlook on colonial architecture and town plans has gradually been replaced by a much more positive attitude. While awareness and appreciation won ground and political perspectives shifted, Indonesia and the Netherlands gradually appropriated the colonial built heritage in Indonesia. Interacting with the past 2 From the end of the 20th-century onwards, Indonesian newspapers, notably the cultural supplements of Sunday editions aimed at the middle class, have regularly featured articles about the East Indian Company (VOC) in Indonesia and colonial built heritage. 1 Often written by young authors, the articles either praise the aesthetics and historical relevance of buildings and townscapes or highlight the many threats they face. To most non-Indonesians, notably Europeans and Americans, the relaxed and positive attitude towards these tactile and often prominent reminders of Indonesia’s VOC and colonial past comes as a surprise. A response often develops into sheer astonishment when confronted with Indonesians exploring Indonesia’s old city centres on heritage walking tours or on old Dutch bikes, with or without mock colonial outfits (fig. 1). Figure 1: Impressions of the Heritage Walking Tour and Festival, Jakarta (2008). Source: Yatun Sastramidjaja, Amsterdam. 3 The interest of the Indonesian middle class for their country’s national history and architecture mirrors that of the Dutch middle class. Although period costumes, bikes and cars are absent in the Netherlands, the Dutch middle class also increasingly visit historic and architecturally interesting buildings and gardens. However, an important difference between the Netherlands and Indonesia is that whereas the colonial past often features in Indonesia, it generally plays a supporting role in the Netherlands. This is not because there are no buildings in the Netherlands that bear witness to that period or because the colonial period is considered insignificant in Dutch history. The reason is rather the reverse and much more prosaic: because the colonial period caused political debates as well as great financial and cultural prosperity in the Netherlands, many Dutch were and are uncomfortable rather than content Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia 3 ABE Journal, 3 | 2013 about the Netherlands’ overseas political and cultural legacy. Because it is a stark reminder of a contentious period in Dutch history, the colonial past and its cultural legacy have often been ignored. 2 When colonial built heritage makes headlines in the Netherlands, it is usually in newspaper articles focussing on its dilapidated condition or attempts to save it. What escapes most Dutch though, is that the buildings or areas described are part of a quantitatively and qualitatively substantial and significant body or work. The Dutch who are aware and involved usually have a personal or professional link with Indonesia. It was this group that, through careful lobbying, managed to soften the Dutch uneasiness about its colonial endeavour and enhance an interest in colonial built heritage in Indonesia. 4 Architecture and town plans in themselves do not necessarily instil awareness and appreciation, or lead to appropriation by a country’s citizens or visitors. 3 Appreciation and appropriation are even less common when the artefacts originate from a period of foreign domination, because they act as reminders of the period of foreign domination. Likewise, from a former coloniser’s perspective, they are no longer situated within existing national boundaries. For these reasons, it is remarkable that the awareness, appreciation and appropriation of colonial built heritage in Indonesia have gradually been increasing over the last decades. This is the case both in Indonesia, where the physical presence of the buildings is a constant reminder of the former Dutch presence, as well as in the Netherlands, where colonial built heritage is not so obviously a day to day reality. 5 To a large extent, this increasing appreciation and appropriation of Indonesia’s colonial built heritage over the last two decades has been stimulated by a growing canon of work, both scholarly and popular. 4 But whilst many of these publications record and assess Indonesia’s colonial built heritage, to date very few address and discuss the growing levels of appropriation by Indonesians and the Dutch. Researchers who do address the appropriation of colonial built heritage, notably Abidin Kusno and Yatun Sastramidjaja, focus exclusively on the situation in Indonesia. 5 By concentrating on the role of colonial built heritage in Indonesia’s post- colonial political framework and societal changes, however, Kusno and Sastramidjaja not only disregard architecture as an autonomous discipline; they also ignore Indonesia’s colonial built heritage’s dual parenthood; i.e., the position of the former colonial power. 6 Because writers like Kusno and Sastramidjaja concentrate on the political and societal aspects of appropriation by Indonesians while excluding issues related to preservation and the appropriation by the former colonial power, significant aspects of the assessment and appropriation of colonial built heritage in Indonesia remain underexposed. 6 This is a remarkable situation, as it is the exactly the colonial origin and its consequential dual parenthood that makes the appropriation of colonial built heritage so complex, for the former colonies as well as for the former coloniser. Whilst built by indigenous construction workers, colonial architecture and town plans in Indonesia were predominantly designed by European architects and indigenous architects trained in Europe. It is this ambiguity that has made the appropriation of colonial artefacts a complex and contested subject matter touching on a wide variety of issues. By outlining the changing appreciation of Indonesia’s colonial built heritage – the factors that drove this development and their consequences for the architectural and planning artefacts – this article explores the complexity of this topic by describing the shifting set of values and their consequences. It contextualizes a phenomenon experienced throughout the post-colonial world: the post-colonial appropriation of colonial built heritage by the former colonized and the former colonizer, and the future of that heritage. 7 Ignoring the colonial past (1950-1982) Indonesia 7 Indonesia’s present relaxed and even appreciative attitude towards its colonial built heritage contrasts sharply with the mindset that prevailed following Indonesia’s independence. Although Sukarno, the Republic’s first President, and Mohammad Hatta, the Republic’s first Prime Minister, proclaimed Indonesia’s independence on August 17, 1945, the Netherlands did not acknowledge Indonesian statehood until four years later. Under heavy pressure from the Confronting built heritage: Shifting perspectives on colonial architecture in Indonesia 4 ABE Journal, 3 | 2013 United Nations, the Netherlands finally signed the transfer of sovereignty uploads/Ingenierie_Lourd/ abe-2013-confronting-built-heritage.pdf