Candra Naya escapes wrecker's ball

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.