The Centrum-Bandung : Adaptive Reuse at Heritage Building as Sustainable Architecture

Abstract

Historic buildings which are the remains of the Dutch Colonial period from the glorious past era still exist in some cities in Indonesia. These buildings can be easily recognized from their typical architectural style in which a mixture of European architecture adjusted to the country’s tropical climate known as Indische Architecture. The style is obvious in parts of the cities in which the Dutch carried out their activities such as districts for offices, trading centres, housing complexes as well as recreational areas. One colonial building in Bandung infamously implementing the style is The Centrum. The building which originally functioned as a recreational vicinity was built in 1920s. Designed by C.P. Wolff Schoemaker, it served as swimming pool or bathhouse where the people of Dutch residing in or visiting the city spent their leisure time. The Centrum, of which facilities the Indonesian in the colonial period were prohibited to even used, has become a cultural heritage landmark located in historic military base. A cultural heritage should be conserved to preserve the valuable generation-to-generation history, and one of the favoured ways to do it is adaptive re-use, or reusing of existing building as part of the concept of sustainable architecture. This paper discusses adaptive re-use implemented in The Centrum building, which has undergone the process of function shifting from swimming pool to restaurant and wedding venue, and lastly to selfie spot. Using qualitative approach along with comparative descriptive method, the study applies the theory of adaptive re-use to investigate the changes in function of The Centrum from period to period. It is found that the function shifts of The Centrum from time to time is the result of situational adjustment to the change of its owner/user, architectural needs as well as current trends such as selfie tourism.