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Roman Architecture on Indonesian Urbanscape
By Vicky Ariyanti on January 9, 2009
Architecture has evolved from ancient time to now in many different forms and functions. One thing we have to understand that they all come from a simple understanding of ‘space’.
As New Year had just passed, which is also a form of Roman culture invested in our life, festivities are bound to take place on all earth surface; fireworks, parties, heavy conjunctions, shopping activities and so on. So, what’s this got to do with architect as a profession?
As an architect in this era, our responsibilities mounted as high as a mountain, we are the core development on earth. We need to look back in history as a reminder on Roman Architecture, which is profoundly shaping the urban scape in many cities of the world. Whether we see it as a facade on a house, a building with functions, the roman style has been implemented as classical style that is easily to be detected; massive structure of columns, heavy and bulky forms, and high ceiling. In contrast with this form, we now have high demands to meet special requirements such as: Eco-friendly architecture.
In some parts of the world this type of roman style is not needed, they would look strange and astray in totally different culture. Although so, heritage of the old colonial time in Indonesia, has left us many Dutch architecture which has a root on Roman style in some ways. They now stand as marks, but ridiculously there are some examples that try to imitate this style in totally new buildings. These inconsiderate moves will create foreign and fake feeling to the surrounding. We should know better, than recreating a Disney world into our own culture. What would be my advice to young architects out there, use your creativity to meet the clients request, without leaving out your own culture.
Happy New Year 2009!!!
May this year will bring happiness, good lucks, and success to all of us.
Mrs. Ariyanti holds Master of Science degree in urban planning from Bauhauss Uni, Weimar, Germany and Master of Engineer from Tongji Uni, Shanghai, China. She works as staff in Serayu-Opak Riverbasin, under Indonesian Ministry of Public Works.
Readers Comments
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Yeah I agree with you. Since our development era at 1980′s, we lost our identity. Almost all of new houses in new settlements areas were made by western identities (architectural style, name of clusters, etc). Commonly, Indonesian people proud to have a house with roman style.
But it is opposite situation with tourism or recreational resort which exploits Indonesian identity. Do we have to go to the cottage to feel Sudanese house? Why we didn’t get this atmosphere in our neighborhood, in our modern settlements? It’s so strange
We lost our identity. i think
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Apart from identities, I reckon the ‘heritage’ architecture left by the Dutch during the colonization era is much better than the so-called modern architecture that we build today (not entirely true though..)
Think about it; the colonial architecture that we see on our urban scape today is best suited to our climate (as far as I remember I have never complained about the temperature whenever I set foot in a colonial structure even though the air outside is as humid and hot as hell would probably be, and the building has no air-conditioning whatsoever.
My point here is, that there’s a lot we can learn from these heritage structures; thick walls, high ceilings, ventilated roofs, and all other building engineering stuffs. Remember, architecture does not only function as container of activities, but also as climate modifier. What’s the use of talking about sustainability and eco-friendly architecture when we still use air-conds in the new buildings that we introduce to our urban scape(at least to the scale of housing and other low-rise buildings)?
If you still ask about identities, well, why don’t we return to our traditional forms of architecture? Why not make “Taman Joglo” or “Rumah Gadang” instead of 1:1 copies of other places in the world (“Singapore in Surabaya”, “A taste of Paris on the West-side”, etc.)? We can combine these traditional structures with ‘colonial building engineering’…I’m sure that we can achieve absolutely magnificent results
BTW, how come I can’t log-in???
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regardless of dutch impact of colonization in Indonesia, there are lot’s of things can be learned such as the adjustment of the climate (tropical). So with the infrastructure like water supply, polder and reservoir.
but there are too many mistakes was made here with the buildings and infrastructures, like flood and earthquake. why people here didn’t even learn from the past?
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I can safely say: “blame political needs!” to the disasters caused by floods and earthquakes. People won’t learn from the past as long as (a large amount of) money is involved…
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Well well.. such good comments from all of you, guys.. Let us go back to our real identity, reintroduce our architectural style into our own people: to love Indonesian architecture.
@Andie:yups there are certainly plenty that we could learn from the past, but they need rethinking as well, because things are changing now; climate had become more severe, money had gained more power and architect has not yet being regarded as their profession responsibilities.
@Prananda: we are in such bad condition, but we can make a difference by believing that the system in our government will walk for a better course.
@Akhmad: thanks for your comment.
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Thanks for the informative writeup. I look forward to more blogs.
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manuj, long time no see,dude! we all waiting for your article forward here
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