Skywatch Friday Post: The Election Sky

With the general election only about a month away, Indonesian skies and airwaves are nowadays saturated with different flags, banners, and a lot of other kinds of advertisements touting the political parties and candidates for the national and local legislative bodies.

Since the fall of Suharto (The New Order) regime and Reform of 1998, Indonesia has become the world's third largest democracy after India and the United States. The Election of 2009 is the third free election held since 1998, and the second direct presidential election. 34 national political parties are going to take part in the current election. In addition to this, 6 local parties are aslo going to take part in the election at the special territory of Aceh Province in the northern tip of Sumatra island. The legislative election is scheduled for 9 April, whereas the presidential election is going to be held in July after the members of the legislative bodies are elected and sworn in.

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation in the Skywatch Friday meme. To see other participants' posts from around the world, please follow the link.

Bandung Architectural Heritage # 3: Bank Indonesia Building

Among its many other nicknames, Bandung was once also dubbed Indonesia's "Colonial Architectural Laboratory". According to journalist and writer Her Suganda (2007), this nickname was given because the architectural styles of most of the historical buildings in this city do not reflect the local, traditional architectural style. Buildings with different kinds of architectural styles, e.g. Netherlands' Indische/Indische Empirestijl, Roman Gothic, Classic, Neoclassic, Art Deco, Art Noeveau, etc., can be found in this city. Most of these buildings were built at about the same period (1920's to 1930's). According to historical records, 400 buildings of different architectural styles were built within this 20 year period. No fewer than 60 architects were involved in making Bandung as a colonial architectural laboratory, of which, according to historian Huip Akihary (Architectuur Stedebouw in Indonesie 1870 - 1970), 16 were top architects of the time.

Since I started this blog, I have at least posted two examples of Bandung's architectural heritage, here and here. Today's photos are of the building of Bank Indonesia on Jalan Braga (Braga Street), Bandung. This building was designed by architect Edward Cuypers and constructed in 1917 for Javache Bank (Bank of Java).

Text and pictures by Eki Qushay Akhwan