Ex-Dutch shipyard now trendy cafes

Ex-Dutch shipyard now trendy cafes

By Ida Indawati Khouw

The VOC shipyard in Old Jakarta, which was once among the
busiest in the region, has turned into an upscale dining and
wining complex. This 56th article on old and protected buildings
in the city provides a glimpse of the history of one of Jakarta's
oldest surviving buildings.

JAKARTA (JP): "VOC" is probably the best known acronym in the
Indonesian history books although few people know what it stands
for. Even if they know, few can pronounce the words Vereenigde
Oost-Indische Compagnie correctly.

In the old city, capitalists have twisted the abbreviation
that refers to the famous Dutch trading company of the 17th and
18th into "Very Old Cafe" for business sake.

The (original) VOC and its logo is now attributed to a
protected building on Jl. Kakap No. 1 in the Kota area of North
Jakarta.

The place was a shipyard in Dutch colonial times but has been
recently transformed into an elite complex of cafes, restaurants
and galleries. This makes the estate one of the rarely well-
preserved buildings in the city, thanks to the private sector's
participation in the preservation of old buildings.

All signs that indicate the place was once a major shipyard
have gone, except for the row of rooms along the two-story VOC
building. In the 1600s it was a very busy place where large and
small ships were refurbished before embarking on journeys to
Europe or other countries.

The Scheeps en Timmerwerf van de VOC (the shipyard and
carpentry of the VOC) was located at a very strategic location at
the mouth of the Ciliwung river across from the Batavia fort, the
center of the VOC government.

Batavia port (Sunda Kalapa port, see Save Old Batavia, The
Jakarta Post, July 9, 2000) was one of the busiest and well-
arranged ports in Asia with hundreds of ships docking there every
day.

Susan Abeyasekere, in her book Jakarta, a History, said that
the coasts along the Malacca Straits (including Batavia port)
were natural stopping places for travelers and sailors whose
vessels sailed in this direction on one monsoon and could load
and refurbish while awaiting the change of winds which would
carry their vessels back again.

At Batavia port, ships loaded and unloaded cargoes like
cloves, peppers and gold from various places throughout the
Indonesian archipelago. The commodities were bought by VOC
agencies and stored at warehouses before transporting to other
countries.

Commercial ships, facing long journeys from Asia to Europe via
the dangerous Java Sea, Indian Ocean, China Sea and Atlantic,
definitely needed maintenance, equipment, food, maps and so on.

There are no documents to determine exactly when the shipyard
was built. Adolf Heuken and Grace Pamungkas in their book
Galangan Kapal Batavia Selama Tiga Ratus Tahun (Batavia Shipyard
in the Course of Three Hundreds Years) mentioned that the
construction had existed in 1632.

However, during the building's restoration in 1998, an
inscription was found on one of the beams showing the year 1628.

"But it is impossible that the roof was constructed in that
year because at that time the area was still inundated by seas.
Probably, the beam was taken from an older building which had
been demolished," Heuken and Pamungkas say.

The shipyard was a hive of activity with administrative
affairs and all the crafts related to repairing ships. There were
blacksmiths, carpenters, sailmakers, shipwrights, ropemakers and
of course all the necessary services like barber shops, cafes,
etc.

All of the skilled workers were assisted by slaves supplied by
kings of Bali and slave traders from Makassar, South Sulawesi.

Heuken and Pamungkas describe the slaves as "a group of people
who received poor treatment. They were forced to work hard, fed
bad quality foods, were tortured and severely punished for their
mistakes even for trivial ones."

"There was also no attention to their health and they died
untimely," the writers said.

Workers were under the auspices of equipagemeester, an
important high ranking official who was in charge of all affairs
related to the port and ships docked in Batavia. Every morning
the equipagemeester appeared before the governor general, the
authority of the Dutch East Indies (old name for Indonesia).

The building, with simple architecture resembling a warehouse,
was the residence of some of the workers and even the
equipagemeester.

In 1721, some parts of the estate were damaged by a big fire.
The VOC and other buildings survived and that is why the building
is one of the oldest in the city today.

Heuken and Pamungkas said that in 1809 Chinese workers took
over works at the shipyard because Governor General Herman Willem
Daendels refused to maintain the building any longer.

Three years later the office and residence of the
equipagemeester at the main part of the shipyard was sold by the
government. Besides changing ownership, its functions were also
expanded. For example, it facilitated small boats taking
passengers to ships, forced to anchor offshore after the harbor
became shallow due to silt deposits.

When it was purchased by the present owner, Susilawati, in
1998, the building was in the very poor condition.

She has restored the estate, turning it into a beautiful
complex of cafe, restaurant and gallery.

The cafe owner keeps the old name VOC in the spirit of
preserving the heritage. "I named it Gedong Galangan (the
shipyard mansion) and keep the VOC abbreviation as the Very Old
Cafe," Susilawati says.