Seven city museums receive face-lift

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is currently beautifying all of its seven museums in a bid to attract more Jakartans to visit them, a city official said on Friday.

Head of the city Museum and Restoration Agency Robert Silalahi said the beautification of the museums is expected to be completed by the end of 2001.

"The project includes cleaning and renovating the damaged parts of the buildings," he told reporters at the City Hall.

According to Robert, the works were badly needed since museums have not, up until now, been very popular in the eyes of many Jakartans.

Work at two of the buildings included in the beautification project has so far been accomplished, at the Jakarta History Museum (previously called Fatahillah Museum) and the nearby Art and Ceramic Museum, both located in the old city of Kota in West Jakarta. They cost some Rp 2.2 billion and Rp 1.5 billion respectively.

In cooperation with the integrated textile company Texmaco, the agency is constructing a new building along side the Textile Museum building in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

The work, he said, is to cost some Rp 1 billion.

The adjacent building is designed to host activities related to the textile industry, such as fashion shows or exhibitions.

"At present, activities like fashion shows are only held at hotels, restaurants or similar kinds of buildings.

I hope in the future all activities related to the textile industry will be held in the museum complex so that it will be visited by many people," Robert said.

Jakarta is the home of 60 museums, seven of which belong to the administration, including the Wayang museum, the Naval museum and the National Awakening museum.

The 53 others are run by either government or private institutions.

Robert said he was thinking of uniting all elements in the community here who were concerned about the museums and their collections, hoping that they could then establish a strong collective group or foundation.

"It's the foundation which will later finance the museums' activities," he said.

In a related development, Robert also said that the agency was sounding out the possibility of cooperating with foreign countries, either with governments or non governmental organizations, to save national heritage sites at four islands belonging to Pulau Seribu (Thousand Islands) group in North Jakarta.

The sites, in the form of fortresses built by the Dutch colonial government, are scattered on Onrust, Bidadari, Kahyangan and Kelor islands and are under serious threat of damage and decay, he said.

He said sea erosion and sand-digging had damaged the fortresses and reduce the widths of the islands.

"For example, the size of Onrust island is now only 7.5 hectares, from 12 hectares previously," he said.

"So far, there has been a green light from the Dutch government and organizations to help finance works at the islands," he said. (ind)