Imagination and National Identity – A brief history of modern architecture in Indonesia

When I first set foot in architecture school in 1993, as a student, I was told to be  “contextual” in anything I did. My professors however were unclear about what being contextual in Indonesia really meant.

I was told that buildings should perform in the hot and humid tropical climate and that they should speak for the local culture, but the two things were hardly distinguished. The first architectural texts that I read in Indonesian were the papers compiled in the book Menuju Arsitektur Indonesia (Towards Indonesian Architecture), presented at the national congress of the Indonesian Institute of Architects in 1982.¹ The book was an attempt to formulate the foundational principles of a truly Indonesian architectural style.

…