European ambience at Fatahillah Museum

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)