European ambience at Fatahillah Museum

JAKARTA (JP): Ignore the traffic jam. Put aside the air pollution. Pretend the street vendors aren't there. If you can do all this, visiting the Jakarta History Museum will feel much like visiting a museum in a European country.

The museum, better known as the Fatahillah Museum, is located at Jl. Taman Fatahillah No. 1 in Kota, West Jakarta. In the plaza in front of the museum is a cannon called Si Jagur, which has become the symbol of the museum.

The facade of the museum is similar to many buildings found in the Netherlands. The roof of the building is high and long, with a small octagonal tower with a dome in the middle of it. The small tower is crowned with a lantern, or another smaller tower on top of the dome.

The building was built in classical Baroque style, and boasts striking green window panes and red doors.

Inside, there are rooms displaying some 23,000 historical artifacts that range in age from hundreds of years old up to the early 20th century. These items include pieces of furniture, weapons, ceramics, musical instruments, coins and ethnographic pieces.

"Our furniture collection is the best in the world," the museum's director, Tinia Budiati, said recently.

Inside the building is a courtyard where sits a 95-year-old, two-meter-high statue of the Greek god Hermes. Visitors can also see underground cells here.

The history of this building that now houses the Jakarta History Museum goes back to Jan. 25, 1707, when Petronella Willemina van Hoorn, the daughter of Dutch governor-general Johan van Hoorn, laid the cornerstone of the building.

According to historic building expert Adolf Heuken, the building was constructed with the intention of replacing the then City Hall, or Stadhuis.

It took three years to finish the construction of the new City Hall, which had a simple design. The interior was clear, simple, practical and without decoration, except for the wide stairs with the high quality carving.

Heuken said there were two incorrect pieces of information about the building's functions in its earliest incarnation as City Hall.

"It is said that the City Hall was used as the office of the Dutch East Indies Company. It was also said that the City Hall also functioned as a church and center for priests," he said during a seminar at the museum on Wednesday.

According to Heuken, during its history as the City Hall, the building was only used for administrative purposes.

"As for a church, from 1622 to 1634 one of the rooms was used to conduct services because the church was not finished yet," he said.

At the end of the 19th century, City Hall was moved to a building at Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan No. 9, where it still stands.

At this point, the building on Jl. Taman Fatahillah served as the office of the West Java governor until the early 1940s, when Japanese troops arrived in the city. During the Japanese occupation, the building was used as a military headquarters.

In 1945, after Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces, the building became the headquarters for the Allied Forces until Indonesia declared its independence on Aug. 17 in the same year.

The building was then handed over to the Indonesian military. The Kota Military Command used the building as its headquarters until the early 1950s, when the command was renamed the Jakarta Military District Command 0503.

The military continued to occupy the building until 1974 when the city administration took it over and inaugurated it as the Jakarta History Museum.

The building is still standing strong, acting now as the silent guardian of history, recalling the glorious past with its collections.

Also in the museum is a reminder of past cruelties. The courtyard prison, really only a hole, is witness to the sometimes brutal life of the past.

"Prisoners were crammed into it, tied with iron chains, and they had to bow all the time. Many died in several days," Heuken said.

Unfortunately, the museum is not air-conditioned so it is very hot and dusty inside.

"You know, the classic story for museums is a lack of budget. Ticket sales are not enough, so we always have to find sponsorships," Tinia said. (hdn)