This study suggests an alternative way of reading the architecture of nationalism by looking both inward and outward. It attempts to identify and theorize different modes through which architecture, in cultivating the collective subjectivities of a certain nation, manifests nexuses between the national and the international. Understanding this reciprocity requires an intensive examination on the international geopolitics that situates any national, architectural production. It involves reading architecture as diplomatic apparatuses, sites of negotiations, currencies of exchanges, exhibiting devices, and other manifestations of international relations that, conversely, helped foster national imaginaries. To undertake such a project, my research investigates two building projects in Indonesia that were built between 1959 and 1965, when attempts toward producing the architecture of nationalism in Indonesia were actualized at full-scale while Indonesia’s links to the world and its nationhood were vigorously negotiated on wide cultural and political fronts. The first project, the Asian Games Stadium (1959-1962) in Jakarta, is emblematic of President Sukarno’s recognition of sports as a prominent platform for producing national pride as well as cultivating anti-imperialist sentiment. The second project, the Indonesia Pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, was devised to position the nation-state strategically within the geopolitics of the Cold War by exhibiting neutrality. Both contrasting projects—one dealing with Indonesia hosting an international event, the other addressing the nation as an international guest—show that the architecture of nationalism hardly constitutes an isolated terrain.
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Architecture, Nationalism, and Internationalism in Indonesia, 1960-1965
Introduction Being in the World
Sjamsoe Soegito worked as a news broadcaster at Radio Republik Indonesia (Radio of the Republic of Indonesia “RRI�) during the second half of the 1940s. Indonesian Independence was proclaimed in 1945. Word of the declaration had spread, yet confrontations in different areas followed. Local guerrillas provoked resistances against the idea of Indonesia, but they remained a peripheral threat in comparison to the systematic attempts by the Dutch, who looked forward, through forces and international diplomacies, to restoring their centuries-long 1 colonial administration (1800-1942) that had been rescinded
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during the Japanese occupation (1942-1945). Soegito was stationed in Yogyakarta, a city in the middle of Java which served as the new nation’s “emergency” capital between 1946 and 1948. He remembered that, during those years of tensions and urgencies, “we used to monitor international news and events, and from time to time included news from the Olympic Games (London 1948) to give the people a sense of being in the world.” He further added that the head of Surakarta’s RRI, Maladi, who would later direct the nationwide RRI, become the Minister of Information, and mastermind the establishment of television broadcasting in Indonesia, was keen to include reports of major championship 2 games for the same reason. Soegito’s account demands scrupulous attention to the intricate manner in which the content of the broadcasting engaged its purpose. Delivering stories from an Olympic Games in which the country did not participate, and in the middle of the conflict, was not merely an incidental act. The Olympic Games is a modern international event; but it is also an institutionalized practice that acknowledges nation-state structures in its very operational basis. Furthermore, the Games’ primary appeal, collective competitiveness, could only be performed under the mutual respect of nations as well as through the performers’ and spectators’ deep affinity with their own nation. Hence, being in the world, through broadcasting news on the Games, implied accustoming people to thinking nationally. It arguably had pushed forward its audiences towards nationhood consciousness. A photograph taken in 1947 by Dutch left-wing photographer Cas Oorthuys provides another significant case. It is
A young Indonesian boy carries a rolled-up map of Indonesia. (Photo: Cas Oorthuys, 1947)
President Sukarno addresses the Fifteenth General Assembly of the United Nations, in New York. (Photo: Albert Fenn, LIFE, September 30, 1960)
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Architecture, Nationalism, and Internationalism in Indonesia, 1960-1965
I Games of Pride
I would like to ask you now whether or not you are proud having such a stadium like this. Are you not proud of the fact that this tremendous stadium belongs to the Indonesian nation? —Sukarno
1
There is a compressed edition of Indonesia located in East Jakarta, in a 370-acre park known as Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (“Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park”). Just as its name might indicate, the park operates as a mini rendition,
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a beautiful one indeed, of the country. At the park, there are, among other things, replicas of traditional houses of the state’s 33 provinces, museums of various national matters, worship buildings of Indonesia’s official religions, and, as the park’s centerpiece, an artificial lake functioning as a 1:10,000 scale topographical model of the Indonesian archipelago. Visitors can experience the park by walking, driving, or taking the park’s cable train. Traveling around the 17,000 islands of Indonesia cannot be more convenient than visiting the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Taman Mini is a kind of Indonesian Disneyland. It was actually inspired by one. After visiting Disneyland in Florida and Timland (“Thailand in Miniature”) in Bangkok, President Suharto’s wife Siti Hartinah (better known as Tien Soeharto) 2 initiated the Indonesian miniature project in the early 1970s. The park was envisioned not only as a mega-recreational space, but also as an educational instrument “to develop the personality of the nation amidst the developments of modern time,” and further to “provide a bridge for the promotion 3 of friendly relations and understanding among nations.” Through its various attractions, the park condenses the nation’s diverse culture into a one-stop leisure complex that can be experienced conveniently in a sweeping sight. For some, the park successfully shortens the distance. John Pemberton, who writes extensively about Taman Mini, recalled that Central Javanese residing in Jakarta often advised him to go to Taman Mini if he sought for an authentic experience of Javanese culture, meanwhile one Solonese couple said that they went regularly to the park as “it’s much less complicated than going 4 back to Central Java.”
Nikita Khrushchev and Sukarno observe the masterplan of the Asian Games complex.
Nikita Khrushchev and Sukarno execute the driving of the hundredth pile of Main Stadium in Jakarta. (Photo: John Dominis, Life Magazine, February 20, 1960)
Structural diagram of basic frame of the Main Stadium in Jakarta. (Drawing by MSA, 1961)
The Main Stadium during the construction. (Source: Indonesia vol. 2)
“The Birth of Televisi Republik Indonesia� diorama at the Museum of Information, Jakarta. (Photo: personal documentation, 2017)
The Main Stadium as the cover of Gelora GANEFO, a magazine Âproduced in the occasion of the Games of the New Emerging ÂForces. (Source: Perpustakaan Nasional RI)
A postcard depicting the opening ceremony of GANEFO in Jakarta, November 1963.
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Architecture, Nationalism, and Internationalism in Indonesia, 1960-1965
II Exhibiting Neutrality
At this point we are building what we consider to be an olympics of progress, which means that the nations of the world, their industries, arts, inventions, will be here in free and open competition to demonstrate achievement. —Robert Moses, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Indonesia Pavilion1 I do not understand. I am a guest of your country. It seems that an iron curtain has suddenly descended between us and the fair corporation. —S. Haditirto, after the Pavilion was seized2
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The main assertion of the Cold War history project in the Third World, exemplified by the publication of Odd Arne Westad’s The Global Cold War in 2005, is that the United States and the USSR interventionisms had significantly constructed the domestic and international framework within which political, social, and cultural changes in Third World countries took place. “Without the Cold War,” Westad said, “Africa, Asia, and possibly also Latin America would have been very different 3 regions today.” These were the continents where the Cold War, which ended peacefully for both opposing blocs through diplomatic resolutions, turned dangerously hot. In Asia alone, many of the domestic and regional conflicts during the period, such as the China’s Civil War, the division of Korea, the Vietnam War, and the Indonesian-Malaysian confrontation manifested proxy wars between the two superpowers. In fact, most of the wars of the Cold War era were fought in the Third World, rendering the entity as the main theater in which the 4 Cold War took place. The other side of the project attempts, through an inverted lens, to alleviate the determining significances of the opposing blocs, by enunciating a more critical involvement of Third World countries in shaping the Cold War. Rather than privileging the actions of policymakers in Washington and Moscow, this perspective regards the different nations of the Third World, which responded dynamically to the polarizing situations, as much active players as the US and the USSR. The argument is largely built upon the rise of newly independent states on the world stage. The transnational solidarity between those countries, institutionalized under the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), also constituted a historical
The Nazi Germany Pavilion (left) and the USSR Pavilion (right) at the 1937 Paris International Exposition.
The USSR Pavilion (bottom) and the US Pavilion (top) at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.
Charles Poletti's personal notes about the Indonesia Pavilion, page 1. (Source: Columbia University Archives, Charles Poletti Papers)
Charles Poletti's personal notes about the Indonesia Pavilion, page 2. (Source: Columbia University Archives, Charles Poletti Papers)
The New York Times features Abel Sorensen as the architect who breaks the skyline of Jakarta. (Source: New York Times, March 26, 1961)
A letter from Abel Sorensen to Gates Davison. (Source: New York Public Library, World’s Fair Corporation Records)
A photograph of the Indonesia Pavilion architectural model used in the Pavilion advertisement. (Source: Official Guide: New York World’s Fair, 1964)
Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX and Robert Moses exchange gifts at the groundbreaking ceremony of the World’s Fair. (Source: Groundbreaking at the New York World’s Fair 1964-1965: Pavilion of Indonesia, New York Public Library, World’s Fair Corporation Records)
Dewarutji passes New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. (Source: C. Kowaas, RI Dewarutji Mengelilingi Dunia, 1965)
Dewarutji crews walk in front of the Indonesia Pavilion. (Source: Sang Saka Melanglang Djagad, 1965)
The ship Tampomas refitted as Indonesia’s Floating Fair to carry performers and exhibitions to ÂHawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore in 1961. (Source: Heirs to the World Culture: Being Indonesian, 1950-1965)
A map reveals Dewarutji’s itinerary during the 1964 world trip. (Source: The World Cruise of R.I. Dewarutji, 1965)
“The Birth of Televisi Republik Indonesia� diorama at the Museum of Information, Jakarta. (Photo: personal documentation, 2017) The Indonesia Pavilion and its closed entrace. (Photo: Bill Cotter, September 1965)
A set of gamelan used by Gamelan Kusuma Laras, an orchestra based in New York. The Âinstruments were exhibited at the Indonesian Pavilion. (Source: kusumalaras.org)
One of the 10,000 television sets distributed in the ocassion of the 1962 Asian Games. The ÂtÂelevision is permanently exhibited at the Museum of Information in Jakarta. (Photo: personal documentation, 2017)