Govt urged to preserve old buildings
Govt urged to preserve old buildings
JAKARTA (JP): An official of the City Museum Agency has urged the central government to pay more attention to the preservation of 206 old buildings in the capital.
Dirman Surachmat, head of the agency, told reporters on Tuesday that a ministerial decree is badly needed for the preservation of cultural heritage because a gubernatorial decree alone is not enough to protect the buildings.
"By issuing a ministerial decree, it would be much easier to protect the buildings because the government will also be involved in their preservation," Dirman said, adding that the government's involvement will include, among other things, the provision of funds for research purposes.
Dirman explained that his agency badly requires a large amount of funds for research on the old buildings, including to measure, draw and make blueprints of each building.
Dirman said that based on research conducted in 1972, there are about 700 old buildings in the city. Out of this number, 224 have been classified as historical buildings and protected by a gubernatorial decree.
However, only 18 out of the 224 buildings were protected under a decree issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Some of the 18 buildings include Pekojan, Angke and Luar Batang mosques, Immanuel and Sion churches as well as Fatahilah, Keramik (Ceramics) and Bahari museums.
Dirman also reiterated the importance of conducting a comprehensive research on old buildings in the city to decide whether they should be used as museums or not because, according to him, old buildings do not necessarily mean they have to function as museums.
"I don't think old buildings should be used as museums. The most important thing is to safeguard the buildings, especially its architectural structure. Their use can be adjusted with demand," Dirman said.
He pointed out a plan to turn the Candranaya building on Jl. Gajah Mada, West Jakarta into a shopping center. The building used to be an old house of the Chinese community in the 18th century. The developer handling the project has been ordered not to change any of the building's architectural structure.
Dirman explained that besides a shortage of funds, there are also many other obstacles to establishing a museum in the city.
He said that to manage a museum there should be a structured organization and human resources to be in charge of caring for the ornaments and other pieces of the collection.
"Talking about the collection, there should a clear concept of the kind of museums we are going to manage. We also have to search for additional ornaments to back up the concept," he said.
The fact that many Indonesians do not appreciate museums as Europeans do can be seen from the composition visitor to the Maritime Museum. The museum is visited by about 120 people every day, 60 percent of whom are foreigners.
"The rest are school children who visit the museum because their schools require them to do so. Moreover, most of them will not remember anything about the museum after they leave the buildings," Dirman said.
Dirman said that it is also important to preserve current museums, which are old historical buildings, such as the maritime museum.
The museum, which used to be a spice warehouse complex owned by the Dutch East-Indies Company, is currently threatened by salt water intrusion. A large amount of money is needed to restore the construction of the building.
"Because we do not have money, all we can do is just repaint the building each year and build dikes to avoid flood," Dhermawan Ilyas, head of the museum, said. (yns)