Formal Aesthetics of the Facades of Historical Public Buildings (Dutch East Indies Architecture in Malang)

Abstract

The building is a form of design work that must have visual quality through the expression of the facade. The visual quality of the building facade is one of the important concerns of the designer, motivated by certain aesthetic concepts, manifested through the arrangement of visual elements and expressed in the formal character of the building. Formal aesthetics as part of the overall aesthetic scope in addition to sensory and symbolic aesthetics is important to show how much visual quality of a building is expressed through its facade. This study aims to find out how the formal aesthetics of six selected heritage public buildings with Dutch East Indies architecture in Malang City through the analysis of the quality of the visual elements of the building facade. The relevance of the quality of this element lies in its importance in the preservation of a heritage building in maintaining certain aesthetic values through hierarchical visual qualification of elements. The method used was a descriptive qualitative analysis based on the paradigmatic syntagmatic relationship that exists in the arrangement of the visual elements of the building facade. The results of this study indicate that authenticity, representation, and inclusiveness determine the level of importance of visual elements in building facade designs that contain certain formal aesthetics. Authentic, representative, and inclusive elements in the facade design of a historic public building with Dutch East Indies architecture in Malang City greatly determine the sustainability of visual quality in its context as a heritage building. The difference in the importance of the three elements determines how much tolerance for changes can be made to significant visual elements. The recognition of the authentic, representative, and inclusive elements of a heritage building aims to provide direction for architectural preservation efforts to the right strategy.