Aga Khan Award for airport presented

Aga Khan Award for airport presented

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): This past week, the attention of observers of
architecture of the Islamic world has been centered on Indonesia.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was presented in the
Kraton of Surakarta, in Solo, Central Java last night. As the
guests to the ceremonies arrived in Jakarta, they literally
descended upon one of the twelve recipients of the largest
architectural prize in the world, with awards totaling up to
US$500,000. None other than Indonesia's gateway, the Soekarno-
Hatta Airport in Cengkareng, is one of the recipients of this
prestigious prize.

In the sixth award cycle 1992-1995, 442 projects were
reviewed, 22 of which were evaluated in situ by technical
reviewers. The twelve projects that were finally selected as 1995
recipients of the award could be grouped into three categories.

The Restoration of Bukhara Old City, Uzbekistan, the
Conservation of Old Sana'a, Yemen, the Reconstruction of Hafsia
Quarter II, Tunis, Tunisia, the Khuda-ki Basti Incremental
Development Scheme, Hyderabad, Pakistan, and the Aranya Community
Housing, Indore, India are considered to be projects that address
a critical social discourse.

Falling under the category of projects with critical
architectural/ urbanistic discourse are the Great Mosque of
Riyadh and Redevelopment of the Old City Center, Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, the Menara Mesiniaga in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the
Kaedi Regional Hospital in Kaedi, Mauritania.

The Mosque of the Grand National assembly, the Reforestation
Program of Middle-East Technical University, two projects in
Ankara, Turkey, the Alliance Franco-Senegalaise, Kaolack,
Senegal, and the Landscaping Integration of Jakarta's Soekarno-
Hatta Airport are seen as projects that introduce innovative
concepts worthy of attention.

The Cengkareng airport does indeed introduce a concept that
may be considered innovative and worthy of attention. The master
plan of the Soekarno-Hatta was developed by Aeroport de Paris
with a design by Paul Andreu. As mentioned in the Report of the
1995 Award Master Jury, the architect envisioned "that visitors
arriving at Jakarta would immediately gain a sense of place by
experiencing the integration of building, nature, and climate
that is unique to Indonesia."

Consisting of freestanding pavilions with open connecting
walkways which face landscaped greens, the airport offers a
rather unique experience to airline passengers arriving in
Jakarta. After disembarking from the airplane and proceeding
toward the baggage collection area, passengers encounter the
landscaped gardens and get a glimpse of the natural environment
of the region.

Meanwhile, the landscaped gardens also provide a pleasant
environment in which passengers waiting in the departure lobbies
on the upper level of the pavilions are able to see the layout of
the gardens in its entirety.

The large openings of the corridor were literally open and
left unscreened to ensure the feeling of openness. However, thick
walls provided a security barrier, inevitably diminishing the
impression of openness.

Ironically, despite the thickness of the walls, the architect
failed to address the intense rain and wind conditions of the
area, and in the past, the feeling of openness was exaggerated
during the monsoon season. The unscreened openings did little to
ensure that arriving passengers be completely sheltered from the
wind-driven rain. The problem has required the addition of
louvered windows to encase the fenestrations, diminishing even
further the feeling of openness.

In the design of Terminal II, airport authorities requested
the provision for air conditioning, which in turn required the
installation of windows throughout the entire lengths of the
corridors, causing a physical separation between the inside and
the outside. However, the architect cleverly remedied the problem
by extending the windows to the floor, thus allowing for a visual
connection between inside and outside.

It is not the first time that a project in Indonesia has
received the award. In the past, in four out the five award
cycles, the Aga Khan Award has been given to projects in
Indonesia. In 1980, the Kampung Improvement Program in Jakarta
and the Pondok Pesantren Pabelan in Central Java was awarded the
prize. The Kampung Kebalen Improvement in Surabaya and the Said
Naum Mosque in Jakarta received honorable mentions in 1986. Citra
Niaga Urban Development in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, received
the award in the fourth cycle of the Award in 1989. In the most
recent cycle in 1992, Kampung Kali Code in Yogyakarta was awarded
the prize. It is evident that the Indonesian projects that have
been awarded are mostly those which have taken into consideration
the social needs of particular local communities.

The 1995 Aga Khan Award Master Jury cites the Cengkareng
project "for demonstrating that even the most functional of high-
tech projects, an airport, can innovatively incorporate
landscaping throughout its design, on the air side as well as the
land side, thereby challenging all architects to rethink ideas
about the links between landscaping and built form."