Villa Isola Fish Pond

A father with his daughters enjoying the fish pond at the southern garden of Vila Isola on a Sunday morning.

I have previously posted several photos and stories about this villa before. As you may remember from those posts, Vila Isola is one of Bandung's most iconic art-deco architectural heritage. Built as a private residence in the early 1930s for an Italian-Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty, the founder of the Aneta press-agency in the Dutch East Indies, Vila Isola was turned into a hotel just after his death in 1934. Then it became the Bandung headquarters of Japanese occupational army in the early 1940s when Japanese Imperial Army occupied the Indonesian archipelago and an Indonesian resistance army militia headquarters during the wars for independence. After the Indonesian Independence, it was renovated and made as the central piece of the newly established Teachers' Education College or PTPG campus in 1954.

The name of the college in which this building stands has changed several times since then: Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Faculty of Teacher Training and Pedagogy) or FKIP of the newly established Padjajaran University in 1958, Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (Institute of Teacher Training and Education Science) or IKIP Bandung in 1963, and Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education) or UPI in 2004.

Since 2010, the building and its surrounding gardens have been renovated to revive its past grandeur. The renovation of the park that you can see at the background of the picture was completed this year and is now designated at Vila Isola Heritage Park.

USD Staircase

My students, some colleagues, and I went to Yogyakarta for a comparative study to Sanata Dharma Catholic University and excursion last week. Needless to say, I took a lot of interesting pictures from the trip. Here is the first one that I want to share with you: the staircase at the main administrative building of the university. From the top floor, the patterns produced by this staircase look very interesting.

Finding Opportunities

I did not post yesterday because I had to go to Depok to attend a one-day workshop on the teaching of translation at the University of Indonesia.

The University of Indonesia campus at Depok is a lush, green, and forested campus with a man-made lake at the center. It also has many well-landscaped tropical gardens dotted with interesting sculptures like this one that I found in front of the building where we had the workshop.

The plaque at the base of this sculpture says that the title of this mixed-media sculpture is "Mencari Peluang ..." (Finding Opportunities). It was crafted by Iriantine Karnaya, one of Indonesia's top sculpturer, in 2007.

Even Debris Speaks Art

Some creative minds and nimble hands have turned the debris of Pentagon Building at the campus of The Indonesia University of Education (UPI) Bandung into some sort of art work.

Pentagon Building was demolished as part of the campus rejuvenation program to make room for the university's new business center.

Choir

I was walking to my car one late afternoon when I heard beautiful chants coming from the basement of my office building. I walked over and found a group of students practicing choir. I found out later that they were the members of KMK (Catholic Students Union) of the Indonesia University of Education Chapter, Bandung.

To listen to the beautiful chants they were practicing, please visit Bandung Daily Photo's sister blog Bandung Daily Video.

Cooperative Learning

For a teacher like me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing our students enthusiastically learn what they want and need to learn and become successful in life.

A variety of techniques, methods, and strategies are available to teachers. Cooperative learning is one of them. It is basically a teaching strategy where the teacher groups students of different levels of achievement in small teams and encourage them to engage in different kinds of learning activities to improve their mastery of a particular topic or subject. The objectives of the group activities are, as the name indicates, to encourage students to help each other (i.e. cooperate) to accoplish the task at hand.

Cooperative learning is good in that it usually creates an atmosphere of togetherness and common fate and that - like that of real life situations - an individual's success is made possible only with cooperation and helping one another.

Bandung's December Golden Sunset

Many times this month we had a golden sunset like this in Bandung.

This is a straight photo: except for resizing and watermarking, I did not do any editing on the color on my photo ediditing software.

The object on the bottom left corner of the photo is UNISBA (Bandung Islamic University) water tower. UNISBA is one of the most prominent private universities in Bandung. Its campus is located on Jalan (Street) Tamansari. I took this photo from Jalan Tamansari Bawah (lower Tamansari Street) at about 6 PM last week.

This post is BANDUNG DAILY PHOTO's participation in this week Skywatch Friday meme. To see other photos of the sky from many other parts of the world, please follow the link.

City of People # 21: Music Students

I was heading to one of the university's canteens for lunch last Thursday when I saw this group of young men performing beautiful music and songs in front of one of the eating places. No, they are not ordinary street musicians, at least not in the ordinary sense of those performing on the streets for tips. These young men are the students of the Music and Performing Arts Department of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung.

I don't know if their "street" performance was part of a course they were taking. The music and songs they performed were very fine and tasteful though. They performed a couple of jazz tunes and a popular Indonesian song before they left for another eating place on campus.

As I said in at least one of my previous posts, Bandung is home to quite a few top Art and Perfoming Art schools in the country. The Music and Performing Art Department of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) is one of them.

UPI Students and Faculty Members Plan to Break The Indonesian Record of The Most Numerous Saman Dancers

These students of the Faculty of Language and Art Education of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI), Bandung, were gathering at the university's sports complex today to practice and rehearse for what is planned to be Indonesia's record breaking number of dancers performing Tari Saman (Saman Dance).

The current record was made on June 8 this year at the occasion of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Indonesia's national awakening at Gelora Bung Karno (Soekarno Sports Complex and Stadium) in Jakarta. 600 people performed the dance then. This time The Faculty of Language and Arts Education of UPI is trying to break that record by involving 700 of its students and faculty members to perform the dance.

Saman Dance is originally from the Indonesian province of Nangroe Aceh Darussalam (Aceh) in the northern tip of Sumatra Island. It is a very dynamic group dance with highly sinchronized choreography.

To see in motion what the rehearsal was like, please check this 30 second YouTube video streaming from Bandung Daily Photo's new sister, Bandung Daily Video.

Bandung Architectural Heritage # 5: Villa Isola - The Western Facade

This is the western facade of Villa Isola (now Bumi Siliwangi and the rector's office the Indonesia University of Education or Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia) as seen from one of the classrooms of the Faculty of Language and Art Education building located west of it.

Villa Isola is located on the northern hills of Bandung on Jalan Dr. Setiabudhi 229.

I have posted three pictures and the stories about this building before: here, here, and here.

Skywatch Friday # 15: Bandung's Late Dry Season's Sky

My Skywatch post today is of Bandung's late dry season's sky. To see other wonderful Skywatch photos from all around the world or to participate in this weekly theme, please check this link.

As I said in my previous week's Skywatch Friday post, October is the transition period between the dry season (summer) and the wet/rainy season in most parts of Indonesia. Being an equatorial archipelago, Indonesia only has two seasons. The normal climatic cycle of dry season begins in April or May and ends in September or October, by which time the rainy season sets in.

By the way, the structure in the above photo is the new building of the Faculty (School) of Social Science Education of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) on Setiabudhi Street in the north of Bandung.

With today's post, I would also like to pass on the the BFF Award to the following wonderful friends of mine:

1. Launcheston Daily Photo (LDP), Australia, for being one of the first to comment on my BANDUNG DAILY PHOTO.

2. Riau Daily Photo, Sumatra, Indonesia, by my good friend Hendrawan, one of the first friends I made when I started this blog. He has a lot of good photos in his blog and, to my knowledge, has never received any awards before.

3. My new friend and frequent visitor Mahmud Yussop of My Kucing Klikz, Sarawak, Malaysia, for his wonderful photos and insightful stories of the area he is covering.

4. My new friend Ian Hamzah of Sanabis Daily Photo, Bahrain, for the delightful photos and stories he shares in his blog.

5. Gerald of Hyde Daily Photo, UK, a long time blogging friend and the web keeper of the Latest Around The World city daily photo blog updates.

I could go on with the list as I have a lot of friends that certainly deserve the award, but I am allowed to pass on this award to only five other bloggers. I hope they will pass on this award spread the love to other desrving bloggers.

Skywatch Post: Bandung's Late Afternoon Sky

Here comes that day of week again, Friday, the Skywatch Day.

My SWF photo today is of Bandung's late afternoon sky. I shot this photograph last Friday from the parking lot of the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) campus in the north of Bandung. The near shillouette building behind the trees at the background is the new student house (dormitory) whose construction has only recently been completed.

You can go here to check other photos of this week's Skywatch Friday posts.

Bandung Daily Photo

The Historic Villa Isola - A Skywatch Post

Text and picture by Eki Qushay Akhwan


Villa Isola (now called Bumi Siliwangi) is the rectorate office of Bandung's Indonesia University of Education (UPI). Located on Jalan Dr. Setiabudhi 229 overlooking the valley with the view of the city underneath, it is arguably one of the most beautiful historical buildings in Bandung and one of the most celebrated examples of art deco architectural heritage in the Asia Pacific region.

Villa Isola was built in 1932-1933 by a reknown Dutch East India's architect Wolff Schoemaker for the Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to enjoy his treasured home villa. He died in 1934 in a plane crash enroute from Batavia (now, Jakarta) to Amsterdam six months after he moved into the villa.

Upon his death, the villa was sold and turned into a hotel. When the Japanese invaded what was then the Dutch East India in 1942, the building once again changed hands and became the headquarters for the Japanese Imperial Army in Bandung. The Indonesian people's liberation army took it over from the Japanese in 1945 when Indonesia declared it's independence and made it their headquarters. In 1954, the building was restored to its original condition and made into the main offices of what was then Perguruan Tinggi Pendidikan Guru (PTPG), Indonesia's first teachers' college, and what is now the Indonesia University of Education (UPI).

About the Photo:
I took this photo from the parking lot of my newly constructed office building, which is located just across a narrow on-campus road from this building a couple of days ago. It had been cloudy that day, but I was lucky. By the time I finished my classes and was ready to go home that afternoon, the sky cleared a bit and provided an excellent lighting condition for this beautiful skywatch shot.

Welcome to and enjoy my second Skywatch Friday post! And thank you for your visit and comment.

Science and Mathematics: Architectural Geometry or Geometrical Architecture?

Text and picture by Eki Qushay Akhwan

Voila the western facade of the School of Science and Mathematics JICA building of the Indonesia University of Education in Bandung.

Established in 1954, Indonesia University of Education or Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) is one of the oldest universities in Indonesia (and Bandung's oldest university) established after Indonesian independence. UPI Bandung currently has about 23,000 students studying in six undergraduate schools/faculties and a postgraduate school under the tuition of more than 1,300 teaching staff and professors.

Since it became a state-chartered university in 1999 (before, it was a state-funded university), UPI has been aggressively building its infrastructure and recruiting the country's top brains to meet its goal of becoming a leading and outstanding international university in the region by 2020.

UPI is located on 229 Setiabudhi Street in the north of Bandung, occupying a scenic campus of about 75 hectares, making it the largest campus in the city.