International Journal of Heritage Studies

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Palimpsests of Progress: Erasing the Past and

Rewriting the Future in Developing Societies—Case
Studies of Singapore and Jakarta

Roy Jones & Brian J. Shaw

To cite this article: Roy Jones & Brian J. Shaw (2006) Palimpsests of Progress: Erasing the Past
and Rewriting the Future in Developing Societies—Case Studies of Singapore and Jakarta,
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 12:2, 122-138, DOI: 10.1080/13527250500496045

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International Journal of Heritage Studies
Vol. 12, No. 2, March 2006, pp. 122–138

Palimpsests of Progress: Erasing the

Past and Rewriting the Future in
Developing Societies—Case Studies
of Singapore and Jakarta
Roy Jones & Brian J. Shaw

The former colonial port cities of Southeast Asia are complex in both their landscapes and
20RoyJones
12
r.jones@curtin.edu.au
00000March
International
10.1080/13527250500496045
RJHS_A_149587.sgm
1352-7258
Original
Taylor
2006 and
& 2006Ltd
Article
Francis
(print)/1470-3610
Francis
Journal of Heritage
(online)
Studies

their collective memories. Centuries of European imperial domination have left a mark on
their townscapes and, more so in some cases than in others, on their contemporary political
and social cultures. During the colonial period, the integration of these port cities into
global trade networks also fostered inter- and intra-regional migration and, thus, the
development of complex cultural mixes in their demographic composition. In recent
decades, and following the attainment of political independence, this region has experi-
enced spectacular economic growth and the development of a range of nationalisms, both
of which have had a considerable impact on the recent transformation of their (capital)
cityscapes. Singapore and Jakarta are presented here as case studies of the ways in which
economic, political and cultural forces have interacted to produce cityscapes in which
elements of the past are variously eliminated, hidden, privileged, integrated and/or
reinvented.

Keywords: Postcolonialism; Port Cities; Southeast Asia; Collective Memory; Urban

Heritage; Singapore; Jakarta

For developing societies in the heady years of the ‘Development Decades’ following the
Second World War, an overriding emphasis on economic growth through modernisa-
tion elevated the legitimacy of landscape change in the cause of efficient, sanitised,
progress. Notions of identity or ‘collective memory’ were in thrall to hegemonic visions

Roy Jones, Curtin University of Technology; and Brian J. Shaw, University of Western Australia.
Correspondence to: r.jones@curtin.edu.au

ISSN 1352–7258 (print)/ISSN 1470–3610 (online) © 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13527250500496045
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 123
of global conformity, guided by either First World economic and cultural practice or
Second World ideological orthodoxy.1 Moreover, within the growing number of newly
independent nations, many historic icons of the built environment were inevitably
viewed as imprints of an exogenous authority, a factor that heavily discounted their
preservation value. Postcolonial reality frequently meant the negotiation of a new
national psyche through the contested identities of a transplanted polyglot population
and the heritage dissonance left by colonial masters.2 Yet, just as the race towards
economic development proved a daunting prospect for many, if not most, of the early
runners, the process of social development and, with it, of identity formation, also
encountered a number of obstacles. To illustrate the diversity of such experiences, the
following case studies explore notions of heritage, memory and place making in two
rapidly changing cityscapes: Singapore and Jakarta.
These two cities will be forever linked through the meteoric career of Sir Thomas
Stamford Raffles, one of the British East India Company’s most capable employees,
who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Java based in Batavia (Jakarta) from 1811 to
1816, before founding Singapore in 1819. Raffles was well aware of the circumstances
that had led to Batavia’s decline following the massacre of some 5,000 Chinese after a
peasant revolt in 1740. This was a major setback to the economy of the port in which
the Chinese had worked as merchants, contractors and labourers, as well as commercial
agriculturalists involved in the expansion of sugar estates. By making Singapore a free
port where all residents received protection under the Resident’s authority, and by
prohibiting the practice of slavery, which had been officially outlawed in British
colonies, Raffles sought to avoid the types of problems that had plagued Batavia and
precipitated its decline.3 Since that time the two port cities have developed their own
contrasting political and social structures. Singapore, following its hasty separation
from Malaysia in 1965, was thrust into an unexpected process of nation building that
stressed the multiracial, multi-religious and multilingual qualities of its citizens.
Jakarta, however, as the capital of an enormously varied and more delicately balanced
young nation, became embroiled in a nationalistic experiment that downplayed aspects
of its multi-ethnic legacy.
The following discussion will explore a number of themes related to heritage
conservation, elimination, presentation and reinvention within the cityscapes of
Singapore and Jakarta. Using a variety of research methodologies, which include
periodic field visits to the selected sites, discussions with interested parties, newspa-
per and other media searches, reference to government reports and additional litera-
ture examination, the authors trace the dynamism of specific structures and
landscapes within the two cities. In Singapore the focus is a relatively fine one, being
dominated by the fate of Singapore’s first National Library in a story that began in
1957, during the first years of self-government, and finally ended along with the
century of which it was an integral part. In Jakarta the focus is somewhat broader,
although it concentrates on two historic areas, Fatahillah Square the administrative
area of old Batavia, and Merdeka Square, site of mass rallies during the Sukarno
period and containing the impressive ‘Monumen Nasional’ or Monas, commemorat-
ing Indonesian nationalism.
124 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw
Singapore
Erasing the Past
Singapore’s rapid development from colonial entrepôt to industrialised city-state has
been celebrated by its chief architect and creator, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew,
in his book From Third World to First.4 This transition, possibly the most successful of
its kind, was guided by a series of Master Plans dating back to the 1950s, whereby urban
land use and transportation were coordinated in a concerted effort to establish the
ultimate degree of spatial and social order through the establishment of planned neigh-
bourhoods and efficient infrastructure. The government compulsorily acquired and
developed land to construct high-rise housing estates and new towns in place of the
cramped and environmentally hazardous rural kampungs. In the city centre, ongoing
modernisation in the form of urban renewal and redevelopment provided new oppor-
tunities for the construction of international-style hotel, office and retailing complexes.
Along the coastline, estuaries were contained, swamps drained, hills levelled and land
reclaimed in order to provide the necessary space for industrial estates and port infra-
structure. Singapore was recreated as an international business hub, a place attractive
to overseas investors, in essence a modern city-state.5
But such wholesale landscape changes did little to promote a sense of identity
among Singapore’s citizens. Whilst materially well resettled in public housing estates,
residents bemoaned the lost ‘kampung spirit’ of communitarian cooperation charac-
teristic of colonial times.6 Carefully regulated planning provisions meant that one
neighbourhood looked much like any other, and the later introduction of Town
Councils defined by increasingly transient political boundaries resulted in frequent
changes of allegiance which further eroded any sense of local belonging.7 In the city
centre, the removal of many historic buildings, repositories of collective memory,
proceeded apace. During the 1970s and 1980s familiar landmarks such as Amber
Mansions, the Adelphi Hotel, China Building, the Law Courts and Raffles Institution,
along with numerous mansions and shophouses were demolished.8 Such constant
and comprehensive reorganisation of space, at both the local residential level and
downtown, quickly destroyed the mental maps of Singaporeans, whereby a
diminished sense of ‘local’ was replaced by a more assertive and marketable ‘global’
identity.
While economic motivations for spatial restructuring were central to the govern-
ment’s developmental ethos, there were associated social and political gains to be
obtained from breaking the nexus between identity and location. The resettlement of
population provided the opportunity to conduct a rigorously applied policy ensuring
ethnically mixed public-housing estates, as a long-term strategy of establishing a
Singapore identity based on multiracialism, multilingualism, multiculturalism and
multiple religions, otherwise known as the ‘4Ms’.9 At the same time, potential electoral
strongholds based on ethnic lines were broken up by this dispersal, a situation that
particularly affected the Malay community in areas such as Geylang Serai, Kampong
Kembangan and the Southern Islands.10 The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP),
which experienced a decline in its electoral fortunes in the early years of self-rule, has
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 125
since governed unchallenged, in part due to the removal of ethnically based local
constituencies.

Rewriting the Future

William Lim, architect and conservationist, had written as early as 1970 that the
preservation of certain historic buildings ‘is not sufficient to retain the character of the
central area … much larger areas will need to be preserved in order to provide citizens
with a sense of environmental and historical continuity’.11 Thus the destruction of
Singapore’s built heritage did not go unnoticed, or uncontested, and professional and
public reaction became increasingly vocal, given the constraints on protest and assem-
bly in the city-state. But official attitudes changed at a much slower pace. There was the
perception that unnecessary preoccupation with the past could undermine the govern-
ment’s ‘4Ms’ policy, leading to a strengthening of ethnic identities, and thus potential
social conflict. When it finally arrived, government recognition of the merits of conser-
vation probably owed more to the marked downturn in Singapore’s tourist arrivals
experienced in the mid-1980s rather than any enlightened change of heart. Moreover,
in its apparent reversal of policy, the government took the opportunity to reinforce its
nation-building mission by stressing the multi-ethnic nature of its built heritage.
Accordingly, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), with due regard for
Singapore’s ‘racially’ identified groups, bestowed conservation status on the historic
districts of Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India, with Emerald Hill represent-
ing the Straits-born Peranakan community, a synthesis of Chinese and Malay
heritage12 (see Figure 1 inset).
Figure 1 Singapore Conservation Areas and National Library.

Figure 1 Singapore Conservation Areas and National Library.

126 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw
The first conservation areas were dominated by two- and three-storey shophouses,
suitable for adaptive re-use within the spirit of URA conservation guidelines, but esca-
lating prices quickly imposed commercial imperatives upon both form and function of
the restored premises. Demands for useable space led to the gutting and rebuilding of
shophouse interiors, with only the outside shells being retained, resulting in façadism.
At the same time, the abolition of rent controls meant the disappearance of marginally
profitable traditional trades such as gold and silver metalworkers, slipper makers and
shops selling religious paraphernalia that had given each area its distinctive character
and meaning. In their place sprung up offices, studios, boutique hotels and the
inevitable bars, restaurants and theme pubs catering for the recreational and tourism
markets. Singapore’s first heritage conservation areas, repaired, restored and in some
cases reinvented, were for the majority of the population just pastiche motifs of the
past, rather than receptacles of collective memory.13
Over 50 conservation areas have now been gazetted, covering some 6,000 buildings
throughout the island. While some of these listings represent substantial streetscapes,
for example the two-storey shophouses in Geylang and along Joo Chiat Road, most are
relatively small land parcels or blocks, with some individual buildings such as the late-
Victorian Singapore Cricket Club overlooking the Padang. As a postcolonial society
Singapore differs from many newly developing nations in that it has actively conserved
much of its remaining built colonial heritage. In the early 1990s, Raffles Hotel, the most
venerated icon of its colonial past, was subject to a S$160 million facelift which
produced, in addition to 104 hotel suites, 13 restaurants and bars, over 60 shops, a
museum, culinary academy and function rooms. On (re)opening it claimed to fill the
three roles of ‘international landmark, grand historic hotel and exciting social venue’.14
In terms of authenticity, this stretched the relationship between conservation and rede-
velopment almost to breaking point.15 Other colonial structures have undergone similar
redevelopment with a view to maximising commercial opportunity, most notably the
CHIJMES complex, formerly Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, dating back to 1854.
According to the URA, ‘buildings are selected for conservation based on their histor-
ical and architectural significance, rarity in terms of building types, styles, and their
contribution to the overall environment … while protecting the important reminders
and representations of our past’.16 But selection and approval of suitable sites is not quite
as straightforward as it may seem owing to the high degree of subjectivity involved
between the unquantifiable elements of historic, aesthetic or cultural value, the compet-
ing claims of various ethnic groups and the need to support national development prior-
ities. Furthermore, there is the issue of economic returns in a state still driven by a
developmental ethos. The achievement of balance between ethnic, cultural, national and
commercial interests ideally requires a high degree of public involvement within the
conservation process, but to date the government has refrained from such indulgence.

Removing Heritage: Singapore’s National Library

The complexities of heritage conservation in the face of competing interests may be
illustrated by the case of Singapore’s National Library Building on Stamford Road (see
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 127

Figure 2 Singapore’s National Library Building, Stamford Road.

Figure 2). In conservation terms the building appeared to present a compelling case for
retention. Constructed between 1957 and 1960 partly through a donation from
Singapore philanthropist Lee Kong Chian, a Chinese emigrant who made his fortune
as a rubber magnate, industrialist and banker, the library was one of the first buildings
commissioned under elected self-government. While the three-storey, redbrick and
concrete building lacked the majesty of older colonial structures, historically and
culturally it was symbolic of an important era in Singapore’s development. At a time
when the young nation was finding its place in the world, the first generation of inde-
pendent Singaporeans saw the building as a symbol of their hopes and aspirations, to
be achieved through mass literacy and education. The building was possibly unique in
that it touched the common memory of all first-generation Singaporeans, devoid of
colonial connotations and without regard for class, gender or ethnic divisions, it stood
as a truly authentic symbol of a uniting nation. When the Singapore Heritage Society
published a collection of essays entitled Our Place in Time, dealing with Singaporeans’
awareness of the past, the evocative image of the National Library Building was chosen
to grace the front cover.17
In 1997, a S$2.6 million upgrading computerised the library facilities whilst leaving
Figure 2 Singapore’s National Library Building, Stamford Road.

the redbrick exterior intact, reaffirming the building’s national position as the Central
Community Library. However in 1998, just as library patrons were becoming familiar
with the new multimedia resource centre, tender notices were posted for another
National Library Board Building to be constructed in nearby Victoria Street. Plans for
a new S$1.5 billion city campus for the Singapore Management University (SMU) were
then announced on six parcels of land in the Bras Basah Road area, including the
128 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw
National Library Building site (see Figure 1). The SMU’s private management had no
declared plan for the building and welcomed public views as ‘valuable feedback which
allows us to build ties with community’.18 A week later the Executive Secretary of the
Preservation of Monuments Board confirmed that the library ‘has been undergoing
evaluation as a national monument’.19 But gradually it became apparent through
media reports that options for the building were narrowing. The critical announce-
ment, an apparent aside made by the chairman of SMU trustees towards the end of a
public forum, was that the National Library Building faced demolition in order to
make way for a one-way tunnel under Fort Canning Hill.20
In retrospect it appeared that the fate of the building had been sealed as early as 1988
with the release of the Civic District Master Plan. Despite Internet polls recording a
93% vote in favour of retention, and the presentation of public and professional alter-
natives to destruction, saving the National Library Building was a lost cause from the
outset. Billions of dollars of government-backed private capital investment in univer-
sity and other commercial buildings and a planned underground road network were
pitched against S$2.6 million worth of upgrade. The token public consultation and
futility of grassroots protest in this case underlines the control possessed by the power-
ful in the defining of place.21 In Singapore, while government rhetoric may support the
notion of conservation for its own sake, in reality it jealously defines the ‘we’, the ‘place’
and the ‘pace’ of collective memory through the passage of time.22

Rebuilding Memories: New Bohemia

At the time of writing the National Library Building is undergoing demolition, a silent
sentinel of past educational aspirations which seemingly has no place within
Singapore’s new central area ‘learning hub’ (see Figure 3). The URA is actively re-imag-
ing the Bra Basah area as an international student village of hostels, shops, eating
places, and educational and other services for young people in anticipation of the
scheduled 2005 opening of the new SMU campus and anticipated ‘buzz that the
(relocated) library will whip up’.23 This new ‘Bohemia’ fits neatly into the Singapore
Tourism Board (STB) ‘Tourism 21’ vision to develop ‘thematic zones’ in a ‘marriage of
old world landscapes with new commercial innovations’.24 Yet another assertion of
Singapore’s marketable global identity, designed to serve both growing resident and
greater anticipated visitor populations, it projects an image which takes precedence
over more humble and intimate collective memories rooted firmly in place and time.
Figure 3 National Library Building under demolition, September 2004.

Jakarta
Contextualising the Past
While Singapore is an avowedly cosmopolitan city-state, which actively uses this multi-
cultural identity to distinguish itself from its neighbour and former political partner,
Malaysia, Jakarta is the ‘gateway primate’25 capital city of a large nation-state that has
often struggled to comprehend and to manage its cultural diversity. For several decades
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 129

Figure 3 National Library Building under demolition, September 2004.

this caused both national and municipal governments to pursue policies of urban
development and renewal which have frequently privileged the idea(l)s of Indonesian
nationalism and given lesser prominence to more exotic elements of Jakarta’s history
and townscape.
One of the most obvious indications of this attitude is seen in the traditionally
Chinese area of Glodok, located between the original trading centre of Batavia and the
newer colonial/administrative district of Weltevedren (see Figure 4). In stark contrast
to the situation in Singapore and in many other cities of the Pacific Rim26 the Chinese
nature of this area is downplayed. Chinese characters on signage are not evident, and
indeed were banned for many years. Distinctively Chinese architectural features are
used sparingly and stereotypically Chinese buildings, such as temples, are rendered
deliberately unobtrusive. While such initiatives are, in part, the result of government
regulation, they also reflect the ongoing tensions between the ethnic Chinese and the
broader Indonesian populations. As indicated above, this is longstanding; it pre-dates
both national independence and Dutch colonialism and relates to the characteristic
Southeast Asian phenomenon of the development of Chinese predominance in the
commerce of the trading cities of the region. The most violent and large-scale
outbreaks of conflict between the two groups occurred, here as in Malaysia, in the
1960s; but these tensions resurfaced during Indonesia’s recent period of economic
downturn and political transition. Notwithstanding, or possibly because of, the ongo-
ing economic significance of Jakarta’s Chinese population, their culture neither figures
prominently in the city’s townscape nor amongst its tourist attractions nor as a recre-
ational reference point for the growing urban middle class. This situation bears
130 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw

Figure 4 Central Jakarta: historic districts.

comparison with the similar downplaying of Chinese heritage in the more obviously
tourist-historic Malaysian centre of Melaka.27
By contrast, the pre-Muslim harbour of Sunda Kelapa, which served as the major
Figure 4 Central Jakarta: historic districts.

port for the Hindu Javanese kingdom of Sunda from the 12th century onwards,28
features strongly in both city and tourist promotions. Notably, this port has an ongoing
and picturesque role in archipelagic trade. A large fleet of sailing prahus brings timber
from Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi to the city through this harbour, symbolising
both national integration and national tradition. By contrast, the treatment of remain-
ing townscape elements from the European mercantile and colonial periods has been
more complex and has involved significant accommodations between Indonesian
national identity and the acknowledgement of a past era of imperial exploitation. This
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 131
accommodation has taken different forms in the two formerly European areas of the
city’s core, namely Batavia and Weltevedren.
In the earliest area of European settlement, the port city of Batavia, the Dutch East
India Company (De Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) created in the 17th
century an equatorial variant of the trading cities of their homeland, with canals,
godowns (warehouses), substantial merchants’ houses and impressive public buildings,
such as the original City Hall. In many ways, this area became a zone of discard almost
two centuries ago, when the Dutch colonial administration, which took over from the
VOC, acknowledged the inadequacies of this cramped and unhealthy environment and
created a new administrative quarter further inland, even using the stones of Batavia’s
walls and other buildings to facilitate urban expansion. More recently, however, in the
early 1970s, when modern redevelopment, and, in particular, road-building proposals,
threatened some of these historic buildings, objections were raised by local politicians
and community groups.29 These protests were initially successful, plans to establish an
historic district were drawn up and, with the assistance of American aid funds, Indo-
nesian officials visited European and American historic precincts. This led to the
creation of what Cobban30 terms the ‘ephemeral’ historic district of Jakarta. Individual
buildings, notably the Town Hall, were restored and the last traditional Dutch bridge
over one of the canals was preserved (see Figure 5), but financial constraints and other
development pressures prevented the realisation of a wider vision that would have
included landscaping of the canals and the creation of a tourist precinct.
While this project failed to achieve its aims at the larger, or precinct, scale, it was notable
Figure 5 Dutch bridge, Batavia.

for the manner in which the preservation of several examples of Batavia’s European built
heritage became a means by which Indonesian cultural heritage could also be displayed.
Relics of Dutch colonial life in the old City Hall were juxtaposed with distinctively
Indonesian exhibits, such as ondel-ondel (carved human figures). Former VOC godowns
now house a national maritime museum collection illustrating boat-building techniques
from all over the country. A former church houses the nationally distinct wayang kulit
(shadow puppet theatre) museum (see Figure 6). And, in another part of the city, a
colonial Hall of Justice houses the national textile (notably batik) and art collection.
In this way, the proposed, largely European-themed, tourist precinct has become, in
Figure 6 Shadow puppet museum.

part, a repository of Indonesian cultural artefacts. Indeed, in official tourist guides these
buildings are identified by their contents (maritime museum, puppet museum, etc.)
rather than by their provenance. Some notable European heritage buildings, such as the
17th-century Sion Portuguese church receive relatively little acknowledgement in such
publications. However, as Jakarta becomes an increasingly globalised city with a growing
expatriate population, other influences come into play. The Ganesha Society, a diverse
expatriate group, has not only initiated and part-funded the restoration of the first floor
of the Jakarta History Museum/Batavia City Hall, but also produced The Jakarta
Explorer,31 a more ethnically inclusive city guide (certainly as far as Chinese heritage is
concerned) than many of the official publications. Even though the recent political
instability and localised terrorism, in Bali and in Jakarta itself, have impacted negatively
on tourism growth, active commercial/touristic acknowledgement of Batavia’s varied
heritage is still evident. The development of a ‘colonial restaurant’ in the old City Square
132 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw

Figure 5 Dutch bridge, Batavia.

(now named Fatahillah Square after the 16th-century Muslim conqueror of the formerly
Hindu state) indicates some preparedness, if only for financial reasons, to accommodate
a Dutch legacy within the collective memory.

Celebrating the Nation

Weltevedren is now far less obviously European, even though it was determinedly a
colonial creation. Batavia had become a colonial capital by default in 1790, when the
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 133

Figure 6 Shadow puppet museum.

Dutch government took over the administration of the area from the bankrupt and
corrupted VOC. The congested port city, with its unhygienic canals, was deemed
inappropriate as the capital of a major colony. In the early 19th century, an area 3 km
to the south, where government buildings could be set in extensive grounds and
‘Javanese-inspired bungalows became the desired residences’,32 became both the seat
of government and the residential area for the bulk of the European population.
This district has been readily adapted to serve the needs of the national government.
The Governor-General’s residence has become the President’s Palace and the major
134 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw
square, now named Merdeka (Freedom) Square, is the site of the national monument
and the venue for major parades and ceremonies. A cathedral and a church remain in
this district, but they are both now overshadowed by the Istiqlal mosque, which was
completed in 1978, opened by President Suharto, and which can accommodate 10,000
people. The layout of this administrative district has thus been readily adapted to serve
the needs of a national, rather than a colonial, system of government. Very few of Indo-
nesia’s population have any direct experience of the colonial period and, as national
celebrations and demonstrations occur in Merdeka Square—and are transmitted
through the media to a growing proportion of the country’s population—so this area
becomes cumulatively imbricated into the national consciousness and memory.

Orienting and Globalising the Future

At least in the earlier post-independence period, national and municipal governments
sought to position Jakarta to the world in general (and to the developing world in
particular) as the epitome of a capital of a successful modernising state. As was the case
in many cities, it was the hosting of a hallmark event—here the 1962 Asian Games—
which provided Jakarta with the catalyst for significant urban redevelopment. A monu-
mental cityscape of boulevards, statues and memorials was constructed extending 6 km
south from Merdeka Square to the suburb of Menteng, the games stadium and the new
town of Keborayan Baru. This rapidly became an elite residential and commercial zone
within the city. In Lynch’s33 terminology, a series of paths, nodes and landmarks were
created and imprinted on the mental maps of those travelling through this zone to and
from the city centre. They represented a somewhat diverse political statement; many of
the Sukarno-era monuments and statues had been crafted in the style of socialist real-
ism, while Suharto’s ‘New Order’ regime (1966–1998) was represented by the office
towers, shopping complexes and luxury housing characteristic of capitalist consump-
tion.
This development beyond the colonial core also provided residents and visitors with
mixed messages in dimensions other than that of the political left and right. Since
Jakarta is the ibu kota (mother city) of Indonesia, its planners and politicians have
frequently sought to develop a townscape that is representative of the nation, while the
pursuit of economic development has also encompassed a drive for international stan-
dards and, thus, international style and content in urban projects. While socialistic
nationalism and capitalistic internationalism were juxtaposed on the triumphal boule-
vards through Menteng and Kebayoran Baru, two major recreational projects—Taman
Mini Indonesia and Ancol Dreamland—can be cited as contrasting examples of these
ideologies.
Both developments are major suburban recreational facilities, largely designed to
appeal to the city’s growing middle class. Taman Mini Indonesia (Indonesia in Minia-
ture) is a 160 ha leisure complex on the south-eastern edge of the city. Its aim is to
symbolise Indonesia’s motto of Bhinekka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) by providing
miniature models of housing from all regions of the country, together with pavilions
for every province displaying sanitised interpretations of traditional culture together
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 135
with examples of the nation’s natural heritage. By contrast, Ancol Dreamland is a
‘placeless’ amusement park, which has been developed on reclaimed land near Sunda
Kelapa harbour. It is surrounded by a marina, hotels and luxury accommodation and
contains Fantasy Land, a Gothic-style construction which offers ‘imaginative tours’ not
only of Old Jakarta and Indonesia but also of Africa, America and Europe. That the
childhood memories of Jakarta’s middle class should contain both nationalist and
internationalist images is hardly unusual. But, although Versailles and EuroDisney
could convey similar messages to a Parisian, for example, Indonesian nationalism in
the early 21st century is much more starkly a work in progress. As such, the public face
of its capital city is, inevitably, more subject to politically directed cosmetic modifica-
tion, accentuating some features and disguising others, to a greater degree than may be
apparent in many Western cities.

The View from Below

The preceding discussion on Jakarta has focused on the rich and the powerful, not
because the collective memories of these groups are more important but because, until
very recently, it was largely the members of these groups who shaped the landscapes
that then passed into the wider collective memory. During the New Order period there
were frequent disputes between the government and poor kampung communities as
new land was sought for further urban development. While the government of the day
was allowed to purchase land for urban development in the national interest, the
communities affected had no representation in these decision-making processes.
Hayden contends that ‘[d]ecades of “urban renewal” and “redevelopment” of a savage
kind have taught many communities that when the urban landscape is battered, impor-
tant collective memories are obliterated’.34
This situation has changed radically during the Reformasi (post-1998) era.35 A
Decentralisation Law has transferred greater land-management responsibilities to local
government, and changes to the laws on the Governance of Jakarta have provided for
community representation on decision-making bodies, giving community groups the
right of appeal to the Governor and the People’s Representative Council. In more
directly political terms, President Abdurrahman Wahid gave active support to urban
grassroots organisations and appointed NGO activists as ministers in his government.
Hitherto, Jakarta’s kampung communities had little power to prevent redevelopment
of their communities as the city’s population expanded, and while reforms have been
enacted, it is still too soon to determine whether the obliteration of collective memories
amongst Jakarta’s poor has been slowed significantly.

Conclusion
Singapore and Jakarta share with many other Southeast Asian port and capital cities the
characteristics of rapid growth, cultural pluralism and postcolonialism.36 This is a
problematic mixture both for landscapes and for collective memories. Although all
cities are ‘the place of our meeting with the other’,37 recent history has determined that
136 R. Jones & B. J. Shaw
the various others in Southeast Asian capitals are particularly likely to differ widely
both culturally and in terms of economic and/or political power. In these
circumstances the same landscape, or even building, may be viewed or remembered
differently by individuals and groups. It may be one or a combination of the following:
a homely landmark, a relic of imperial oppression, the signifier of a potentially threat-
ening religious or cultural group, or a tempting commercial opportunity. In these
circumstances, Lowenthal’s contention that ‘things worth saving need not necessarily
be beautiful or historic as long as they are familiar or well loved’38 requires some
qualification. The contemporary speed of change in many Southeast Asian cities is such
that familiarity is at an increasing premium and their inherent cultural diversity
frequently requires the rider ‘well loved by whom?’
In both Singapore and Jakarta, governments and planners are seeking to expand the
collectivity of the memories of their diverse societies in the hope that this will make a
wider range of their landscapes both more familiar to and well loved by all. At the same
time there is a reluctance to favour heritage conservation in the face of obvious
commercial opportunity. In a globally oriented city-state, Singapore’s government has
retained ultimate control of collective memory while capitalising on its multi-ethnic
legacy. But, in Jakarta at least, this collectivity does not, as yet, appear to extend to those
whose ethnic origins lie beyond Indonesia’s (somewhat dynamic) borders.

Notes
[1] Escobar, Encountering Development; Booth, Rethinking Social Development.
1

[2] Tunbridge et al., ‘Contested Heritage Perth, 1995’; Tunbridge and Ashworth, Dissonant
2

Heritage; Shaw and Jones, Contested Urban Heritage.

[3] Ooi Giok Ling and Shaw, Beyond the Port City; Shaw, ‘Thomas Stamford Raffles 1781–1826’.
3

[4] Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First.

4

[5] Perry et al., Singapore.

5

[6] Lowe-Ismail, Chinatown Memories.

6

[7] Tay, ‘The Coming Crisis?’

7

[8] Huang et al., ‘Conserving the Civic and Cultural District.

8

[9] Siddique, ‘Singaporean Identity’.

9

[10] Rahim, The Singapore Dilemma.

10

[11] Lim, ‘Urban Redevelopment’, 56.

11

[12] URA, Manuals for the Conservation of Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam.
12

[13] Shaw et al., ‘Urban Heritage, Development and Tourism in Southeast Asian Cities.
13

[14] Liu, Raffles Hotel, quoted in Henderson, ‘Conserving Colonial Heritage’, 20.
14

[15] Powell, ‘Erasing Memory, Inventing Tradition, Rewriting History’.

15

[16] URA Conservation Information, available at http://www.ura.gov.sg/ (accessed November

16

2002).
[17] Kwok Kian-Woon et al., Our Place in Time.
17

[18] The Straits Times, 9 December 1998.

18

[19] The Straits Times, 18 December 1998.

19

[20] The Straits Times, 14 March 1999.

20

[21] Yeoh and Kong, ‘The Notion of Place in the Construction of History, Nostalgia and Heritage
21

in Singapore’.
[22] Ooi Giok Ling and Shaw, Beyond the Port City, 132.
22

[23] The Straits Times, 8 October 2003.

23
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 137
[24] Savage et al., ‘The Singapore River Thematic Zone’, 213.
24

[25] Johnston, City and Society.

25

[26] Anderson, ‘Cultural Hegemony and the Race-definition Process in Chinatown, Vancouver’.
26

[27] Worden, ‘“Where it All Began”’.

27

[28] Jayapal, Old Jakarta.

28

[29] Cobban, ‘The Ephemeral Historic District in Jakarta’.

29

[30] Ibid.
30

[31] James and Hirst, The Jakarta Explorer.

31

[32] Ford, ‘A Model of Indonesian City Structure’, 377.

32

[33] Lynch, The Image of the City.

33

[34] Hayden, The Power of Place, cited in Powell, ‘Erasing Memory’, 85.
34

[35] Winayanti, ‘The Struggle for Land in Kemayoran, Jakarta’.

35

[36] Askew and Logan, ‘Introduction’.

36

[37] Barthes, ‘Semiology and the Urban’, cited in Jacobs, Edge of Empire, 4.
37

[38] Lowenthal, ‘Environmental Perception’, 555.

38

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