Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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Subject: architecture × Subject: urban design × Type: PhD thesis × Start date: 2007 × End date: 2009 ×

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    Constructing and contesting the nation: the use and meaning of Sukarno's monuments and public places in Jakarta
    Permanasari, Eka ( 2007-10)
    Architecture and urban design are often powerful expressions of political desires to support and legitimise specific regimes. In many postcolonial cities, architecture and urban design are set out to construct national identity and affirm a political power that departs from the former colonial rule. Architecture and urban design may be used by successive postcolonial regimes to compete with each other to legitimise authority and symbolise power. While such concepts of national identity are established through a constellation of urban forms, national identity is always contested. Places may be used and interpreted in ways that differ from what is intended. Attempts to control the meaning of architecture and built form may conflict with the ways in which spatial practices undermine intended meanings. This research examines the role of Sukarno's monuments and public places and how their meanings and uses have been transformed under successive regimes. It deals with the establishment and the ongoing transformation of national identity embedded in Sukarno's monuments and public places. The study traces the history of central Jakarta as it emerged under the Dutch colonial rule and its transformation under Sukarno when he established a postcolonial national identity through urban forms. It then outlines the transformation of meaning and use of Sukarno's monuments and public places under Suharto and then the Reformasi. It explores how such places and forms embody national identity and political capital; and how they mediate practices of oppression, resistance liberation and democracy. It concludes that Sukarno's monuments and public places exemplify colonial and postcolonial relationships, and their transformation was an expression of different approaches by different regimes and spatial practices over time. While the research examines colonial influences upon the postcolonial era, it does not compare Jakarta with other postcolonial cities. Rather, the research is limited to a discourse on colonialism in Indonesia and how this influences postcolonial symbols and practice.