DISTRACTING THE DUALITY OF CENTRE AND PERIPHERY: THE CULTURAL REPRESENTATION IN INDONESIAN’S POST-COLONIAL AIRPORT ARCHITECTURE

Year 2018, Volume: 3 Issue: 3, 79 - 90, 01.02.2018

Mushab Abdu Asy Syahıd Kemas Rıdwan Kurnıawan

Abstract

As the main national gate and the centre of air transport hub of the state, Soekarno-Hatta international airport bears such important role in providing initial global-local interactions regarding culture, economic, political and social aspects in Indonesia. This paper discusses the idea that the development of aviation technology, transport infrastructure and modern architecture in the post-colonial state become significant tools in emphasising the interrelationship between space, power and identity. Located in western outskirts of Jakarta Greater Area Tangerang , the airport's terminals and its airside/landside landscape technically and metaphorically offer a cultural representation that symbolises the so-called national identity. It is as a result of intertwined dialogues between international and local architects, as well as the political culture of New Order regime to incorporating local heritage as a formalised tradition in the space of periphery. The study focuses on how power relationship in colonial state and post-colonial state worked to produce such spatial configuration of the centre-periphery model throughout the development of modern infrastructure and technology along with the cultural representation while displaying such spaces as margin/periphery in a broader sense. The complex duality between the centre Jakarta and its region Tangerang exists in the colonial-post-colonial discourse and practices, centre/core-region relationship, and in the global nexus forcelocal agencies. The presence of mega national infrastructure in the region, in contrary, functions instead of a catalyst to perpetuate a new kind of centre surrounding the old periphery. Modern vast development, besides the implementation of superficial traditional heritage and global-local intermingling blur the sense of territorial sovereignty and duality of centre and periphery. The conclusion suggests the urge to pay more attention to further regional development worldwide concerning cultural, economic and political as developing periphery

Keywords

airport, centre, cultural representation, periphery, post-colonial architecture

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