Gunther W. Holtorf still putting Jakarta on the map

Gunther W. Holtorf still putting Jakarta on the map

By David Eyerly

JAKARTA (JP): Gunther W. Holtorf is a man who knows his way
around. The 64-year-old German is familiar with much of the
world, living overseas much of his life and spending the last 10
years traveling around the globe in a four-wheel drive Mercedes
wagon.

But no matter how well he knows the rest of the world, it is
just a passing acquaintance compared to his intimate relationship
with Jakarta, a city Holtorf says he can navigate blindfolded.

It's an exaggeration, but all the same it gives one pause
because if anyone could navigate Jakarta blindfolded, with all
its confusion and chaos, it would be Holtorf.

For the unassuming Holtorf is the man responsible for the
Jakarta-Jabotabek Street Atlas and Names Index, the 12th edition
of which appeared in stores this week. This latest edition is an
impressive 385 pages of detailed maps and useful information
covering all of Greater Jakarta, far from the modest folded city
map Holtorf first introduced in 1977. But then Jakarta itself was
much more modest in those days.

"We lived basically without electricity. We basically lived
without telephones, not to talk about faxes and all the other
things. Maps were not available. A foreigner was blindfolded here
in Jakarta. He knew this road I have to take to the center and to
return back home, but he didn't have a clue of the layout of the
city," Holtorf says of life in Jakarta when he arrived here in
1973 as the general manager of German airline Lufthansa.

When Holtorf would invite friends to his house in Kemang in
those days, he would have to sketch a small map on the back of
the invitations to help people find their way.

"Friends asked me, 'Why don't you do it properly, why don't
you compile a map of Jakarta because we all are suffering,'" says
Holtorf.

And from such modest beginnings sprang his first city map,
targeted mainly at the foreign community that found itself a bit
at sea in Jakarta.

Holtorf contacted the local government and obtained the
blueprints of old Dutch base maps of Jakarta, which he used as a
basic tool to physically survey the city.

"I took a piece of paper and went into a certain area and
drove around that area and collected all the data I could
physically absorb, and by that means updated the existing,
outdated so-called base maps.

"That took me about three years. I did that in the morning
hours. I started at 5:30, six in the morning until about nine. At
that time traffic was a fraction of today; today it would be
impossible to do. And I did it over the weekends, I did it in the
evening hours. I spent my entire spare time over a period of
three years doing this.

"And by that means I collected all the data to be able to
compile and draw up the first map, that means data you would
normally be able to obtain from the land and survey office .... I
had to put together, in a Mickey Mouse operation, all the little
details, including names, that was the most important point
because there still is no government source where you can obtain
a street name list. The postal authority, for compiling their
post codes uses this atlas to get their names."

Holtorf seems slightly embarrassed as he recalls presenting a
copy of the map to then city governor Ali Sadikin in 1977 on the
occasion of Jakarta's 450th anniversary, and being honored with a
plaque for his work.

"But it was a very, very big event, that single sheet of
paper. Everybody was so proud finally to have a basic map of
Jakarta."

That single sheet of paper expanded along with Jakarta, which
outgrew the folded city map in 1992, when the first street atlas
edition was introduced.

While Holtorf's maps are no longer the only ones available,
they remain, he notes, the only original maps of the city. "There
are about 15 to 20 maps that have been published and they are
all, without exception, pilfered copies of my old maps .... All
the maps, all the color schemes, the details and so on, all the
names, the way I spelled them and abbreviated them, it is 100
percent copied."

He takes a philosophical approach to this issue, preferring to
look on the positive side. "I always say that since Indonesia is
the largest white spot cartographically on earth ... the fact
that I started out with that city map certainly stimulated other
parties over the years to copy that map and also stimulated
people to do something similar for Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang
and so on, and these maps are on the way now. I'm not unhappy
about the fact, should I say it that way, I'm not unhappy that I
could help Indonesia a bit in this field."

World's best cartography

That is the claim made on the cover of the latest edition of
the street atlas, the first since 1997 when the economic crisis
put a temporary halt to Holtorf's work.

While difficult, if not impossible to verify, this atlas
certainly comes loaded with user-friendly features. And just a
quick glance at the atlas shows that it is easier to read and use
than your usual atlas, with its jumbles of lines and illegible
street names.

This is good news for everyone, Indonesians and foreigners
alike, who find themselves at a frequent loss for how to get from
Point A to Point B in Greater Jakarta, which has grown so large
that there are some areas your average resident, Indonesian and
foreigner alike, has only vaguely heard of.

One might assume that with the success of the atlas and
Holtorf in the middle of his world tour, his involvement in the
new atlas would be limited to putting his name on the cover and
coming to Jakarta to promote it. That would be an incorrect
assumption. Much like with the first map, Holtorf is still out
there in his car driving around the city collecting data by
himself.

"There is no name, no line entry, no street entry in this
atlas which I have not checked and seen personally."

Holtorf will leave Indonesia at the end of the month, go get
his Mercedes, which is parked in New Jersey, and continue on his
journey -- to Canada, Central America, South America. But he will
be back at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003, probably
driving around Greater Jakarta with pen and paper, collecting
data on what buildings have gone up, what new housing settlements
have appeared, what street names have changed.

Because, as Holtorf says, "People need good maps."