Indonesian colonial architecture

Abstract

The city of Batavia was the administrative capital of the V.O.C (United East India Company). Initially, the city’s construction followed the Dutch style, the Dutch administration going to enormous lengths and putting colossal efforts to segregate the ethnic groups present in the city and t exert their dominance. Over time, the city’s built environment started to adapt to the surroundings and its inhabitants and created a so-called hybrid style. This thesis hypothesizes that the architectural style in the 19th century represents a merging between the Indonesian vernacular architecture and Dutch style.

In order to research this hypothesis, the thesis compares the situation of the archipelago prior to the European arrival with the initial situation of the city in the 16th century and with the19th century situation from an architectural point of view. As such, the thesis research is based on a series of images of the built environment of the city, obtained from the colonial archives and literature sources describing the city archipelago and its buildings from the European and Indonesian points of view.

Lastly, the thesis analyzes a series of case studies from the 19th century, such as the Grand Java Hotel, the ‘Japan’ house, and the ‘woodhuis’ houses, which shows the merges between the two cultures not only from an architectural point of view but also a social-economic perspective.