The Nusantaran Architecture Design Competition: A ‘Forced’ Traditionalisation of Indonesia’s Architectural Identity Translation?

Abstract

The Indonesian government has recently adopted the term ‘Nusantaran Architecture’ as an alternative representation of Indonesia’s architectural identity. This term is employed to capture the locality of the country, whose narration is developed around the idea of bringing back the indigenous culture as part of preserving the ‘authentic’ identity of the country. The term is incorporated in the national tourism plan, and is literally adopted in the Nusantaran Architecture Design Competition, a platform from which the government obtains design translations of the perceived identity. However, this design competition leads to ‘traditionalising’ architecture, depicted in how the winning designs incorporate the traditional design elements to ‘localise’ the buildings. This design competition is problematic not only for its top-down Javacentric method employed, but also for its direction in appropriating traditionalism in contemporary built form based on the architects’ and the juries’ arbitrary approaches. Since economic motive through ‘romantic tourist gaze’ dominates the translation of identity, it portrays not only the hegemony of capitalism in the way the country imagines its own identity, but also the presence of an Orientalist view as a legacy of colonialism. This paper investigates the problematic implementation of the Nusantaran Architecture Design Competition as an attempt to concretise the authorised version of the perceived identity. It also scrutinises the strong political influence that governs the whole identity construction process in adopting what is regarded as ‘given’ traditional architecture.