Candra Naya escapes wrecker's ball

By Ida Indawati Khouw

In conjunction with the celebration of the Chinese New Year on Feb. 5, The Jakarta Post will feature several articles on the few extant city buildings with Chinese architecture. Candra Naya, which belonged to the last Dutch-appointed Chinese major in the city, opens the features. It is also the 23rd article in a series on Jakarta's historical sites and buildings, appearing in Saturday editions of the Post.

JAKARTA (JP): A visitor to the capital might assume there would be many buildings in the Chinese architectural style because Chinese immigrants composed the first foreign community in what was then called Batavia.

The reality is that most of the buildings have fallen victim to the wrecker's ball. An expert on the city's historic buildings, Grace Pamungkas, said there were only three buildings remaining intact, all of them in the Chinatown area of downtown Kota, West Jakarta.

One of them is Candra Naya on Jl. Gajah Mada in West Jakarta, the building which has been witness to the social and political role of its onetime resident Khouw Kim An, the last Chinese community leader in the city, and the changing fortunes of the ethnic Chinese in the city.

Experts say Candra Naya was the city's biggest and most complete building in the Chinese architectural style before its back section and left and right sides were demolished to make way for the development of a hotel, apartment and shopping center complex several years ago.

The 19th century construction is now dwarfed by the complex of multistory constructions owned by the giant Modern Group, despite the public and media criticism of the project.

Its characteristics as the mansion of a rich Chinese family during the Dutch colonial era cannot be admired today -- and not only because of the towering presence of the surrounding buildings.

The project's security guards zealously shield the building from public view, going so far as to shoo away people who want to observe this piece of Jakarta's heritage from a nearby bridge outside the complex.

In an old list of historical buildings in the city, the mansion is registered, in Dutch, "as the house of the Chinese major Khouw Kim An". Other data said the building was constructed on the site of "landhuis Kroet" (Kroet villa).

The book Rumah Sang Mayor (The major's house) stated the building was one of three mansions built on the same street Molenvliet West (now Jl. Gajah Mada) by three sons of landlord Khouw Tian Sek, namely Khouw Tjeng Po, Khouw Tjeng Tjoan and Khouw Tjeng Kee.

The homes of Khouw Tjeng Po and Khouw Tjeng Kee were demolished and are now the site of SMA 2 High School and an empty land under the supervision of the city administration, respectively.

It is not clear whether Candra Naya was constructed by Khouw Tjeng Tjoan himself or by his father, Khouw Tian Sek. There is also no information about its architect.

"The only clear thing is that every Chinese New Year the building was repainted in red and gold, with the paint imported from China," the book recorded.

The 2,250-square-meter mansion was decorated with symbolic Chinese ornaments and consisted of separate buildings, each connected by courtyards.

Edison Yulius, a lecturer on the history of architecture at private Tarumanagara University in West Jakarta, said that after Khouw Kim An inherited the mansion from his father Khouw Tjeng Tjoan, the son brought his 40 wives to stay there.

Edison, who studied the city's Chinatown architecture and urban affairs, said the construction came during the growing Chinese settlement along the present Jl. Gajah Mada and Jl. Hayam Wuruk, which at that time was a plantation area. It followed the move of the colonial administration and military headquarters in 1797 from Kota to a newly developed section of the city, which is today around Lapangan Banteng.

"Like other big Chinese buildings, Candra Naya followed the traditional characteristic of having four pavilions which together formed a square with a courtyard in the middle," Edison said.

It allowed for expansion of the home if the number of family members increased.

"They placed the most important room in the very back, usually used as the owner's room. That's why the roof of the building located in the back must be higher".

Candra Naya's most famous resident was Khouw Kim An (1897- 1945) who in 1910 became majoor, the Dutch term for major, the highest rank for a Chinese leader in the Dutch East Indies.

Attainment of the rank showed that Khouw -- a leading businessman and shareholder of Bataviaasche Bank -- was held in high regard in the Chinese community.

During Khouw's lifetime, the ethnic Chinese played a role in social and political affairs.

The book Prominent Indonesian Chinese, Biographical Sketches recorded his involvement in various organizations, including as the founder of Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan, an educational organization with branches throughout Indonesia, in 1900. He also served as president of the Chinese Council in Jakarta.

Another book, The Chinese Captain of Batavia 1837-1942, said that Khouw, who obtained a Dutch education at the Europeesch- Lagere School, also set up the Chung Hwa Hui political party with other Dutch-educated intellectuals and businessmen.

Khouw Kim An was the last system of Batavia because the system ended when the Japanese occupied the country and Dutch colonialism came to its end.

The book said Batavia had only five majors: Tan Eng Goan, Tan Tjoen Tiat, Lie Tjoe Hong, Tio Tek Ho and Khouw Kim An (1910-1918 reappointed 1927-1942).

Khouw died in 1945 in a Japanese internment camp.

His mansion was then granted to the Sin Ming Hui (New Light Foundation), a Chinese social organization established on Jan. 20, 1946.

Another cultural expert, Wastu Pragantha Zhong, said Khouw's offspring abandoned the building.

Sin Ming Hui provided health care, as well as sport, education and photography activities at the building complex.

Zhong, the founder of Tarumanagara University's School of Architecture, said the foundation's activities developed fast, leading to the founding of Sumber Waras Hospital in West Jakarta and nearby Tarumanagara.

"The university's school of architecture, law, economics and English were initially located at the mansion," he said.

In the late 1950s it changed its name to Tjandra Naja (or Candra Naya), the famous name of its elementary through senior high schools.