Lin Che Wei and Marco Kusumawijaya, The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Sat, 02/14/2009 10:29 AM
Few buildings in Jakarta can boast a more genuine presence of Old Jakarta than the Old Immigration Office building, formerly known as Netherlands-Indische Kunstkring (the Netherlands-Indies Art Circle). It’s now simply known as Buddha Bar.
The main building of the compound on Jl. Teuku Umar 1 one of the earliest reinforced-concrete buildings built during the Dutch colonial era. It originally functioned as a center for the arts and hosted opera performances.
It held also Indonesia’s first ever architecture exhibition and painting exhibitions by the modernist European masters.
Recognizing the historical and architectural importance of the building, Jakarta’s administration spent Rp 28 billion in 2002 to repurchase the old building and then poured an additional Rp 6.1 billion into restoring it in 2005.
Named the Netherlands-Indische Kunstkring (the Netherlands-Indies Art Circle), the building was designed and constructed in 1912 by Dutch architect Pieter Adriaan Jacobus Moojen, who was also the developer and one of the two architect-designers of the Menteng residential estate.
As reported by The Jakarta Post on July 18, 2005, Aurora Tambunan, the head of the city’s Culture and Museums Agency had promised that the agency would work with private management to transform the building into a ‘unique venue’ where all Jakartans could hold activities.
One part of the building would be set aside for commercial purpose. Unfortunately, this pledge has never become a reality.
The building is not a unique venue for all Jakartans. It is a unique venue for some Jakartans — the upper class ones.
The whole building — not only a part of it — has become the totally commercial Buddha Bar. It is interesting to note that a daughter of former governor Sutiyoso now runs the operation.
Physically it has returned to its former glory, but spiritually it has lost its soul and its place with the public. As citizens of Jakarta, now we now know what the city administration means by private management.
We hope it is only a coincidence that the building was repurchased and renovated using funds from the city’s budget during Sutiyoso’s term as Governor of Jakarta.
Public private partnerships should mean injecting money from the private sector to support public projects, not the other way around. The repurchase and renovation was done with public money.
However, now that the renovation has been completed, the building is being used to house a private commercial enterprise, run by a child of the public officer who approved the purchase and renovation in the first place.
On a visit to the Buddha Bar last week, Lin Che Wei remembered the old Jakarta Immigration office. To be honest, the feeling was really mixed. He was happy because such marvellous building is being preserved for future generations, but he was sad that it has lost the openness to the public and was disgusted to learn how the public private partnership scheme was distorted.
To be honest, we prefer the old Jakarta Immigration office, as the building might have been run down, but it wasn’t a gaudy hang-out for the rich and powerful.
In the old Jakarta Immigration Office there was room to service both the poor and the rich – there was a spirit of service to the general public.
More importantly, there was a spirit that the old heritage building was a public space which belonged to all citizens and we believe that really matters. The old Jakarta Immigration Office might have been run-down but there was a room for the public and there was a room for honesty, and that is what really matters.
Indeed, we are increasingly in need of public infrastructure that is truly open and inclusive to help facilitate meaningful urban societal integration.
Because, we know that cities in Indonesia — probably also in all Southeast Asia and the world at large — are really facing three inter-related threats: the receding and shrinking role of the state (as the representative of the public), expanding privatisation and invasive and intruding sectarianism. They are all too easily experienced in our every day public spaces.
We know too that it is not easy to protect what is public entirely. Often we have to resort to public-private partnerships that are not always beneficial to the public, because of some distortion, of which the Gedung Imigrasi is a perfect example.
It was repurchased and restored to its original condition with public money; but to operate and maintain it, the government has to depend on the private sector that turned it into an exclusive upper class nightspot. It lost its publicness, despite the public investment.
We strongly believe as citizens of Jakarta that we have the right to demand accountability from Governor Fauzi Bowo to make good the promise made by the head of City Culture and Museum Agency to make the venue open for the public, irrespective of their social class. The building should be made more open to all Jakartans.
We strongly believe that all Jakartans have the right to enjoy the building – the Jakarta administration must ensure that only a part of the building is used for the commercial purpose and that the maintenance of the building comes with a Public Private Partner-ship scheme which is more accountable and does not rely purely on nepotism.
Lin Che Wei is a Founder of Independent Research and Advisory Indonesia, Marco Kusumawijaya is an architect and urban planner.
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