Framing and Visualising Nationhood: Istiqlal Mosque and the Interiority of the Independence Square, Jakarta

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Issue Vol. 7 No. 2 (2024)
Published Jul 30, 2024
Section Articles
Article downloads 365
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7454/in.v7i2.375
Submitted : Jul 31, 2023 | Accepted : May 8, 2024
Tutin Aryanti
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia
tutin@upi.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-0680
Amanda Achmadi
University of Melbourne, Australia
aachmadi@unimelb.edu.au
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3555-923X

Abstract

Studies on interiority have profoundly shifted the perspective of looking at urban space as a socially constructed architectural product. This study examines the meanings invested by Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia and the patron of the mosque, in Istiqlal Mosque (1962) and the Independence Square using the lens of interiority. Rather than looking at the mosque as a single monument, this study considers the mosque and its time and spatial contexts as an architectural unity to make Sukarno's vision of nationhood manifest through the interiority of the Independence Square area in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city. This study employed an architectural survey and documentation of Istiqlal Mosque and its surrounding built environment and analysed them using Derrida's (1978/1987) centre and margin theory. It is found that the Istiqlal Mosque was designed as part of the frame that reinforces the meaning of the interior of Independence Square, where the National Monument (1964), Sukarno's major monumental project, stands. Istiqlal Mosque was constructed to claim the newly established nation as the world’s most populous Muslim country and to communicate Sukarno’s idea of uniting Indonesia's diverse cultural and religious backgrounds through religious tolerance while declaring his firm standpoint in the 1960s Cold War.

Keywords: architecture and power, urban interiority, modern achitecture, monument, nationhood, state mosque

Article Details

How to Cite
Aryanti, T., & Achmadi, A. (2024). Framing and Visualising Nationhood: Istiqlal Mosque and the Interiority of the Independence Square, Jakarta. Interiority, 7(2), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.7454/in.v7i2.375
Author Biographies

Tutin Aryanti, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia

Tutin Aryanti is an associate professor of architecture at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia, who is currently serving as the Regional Advisor for Southeast Asia for the Michigan State University's Science, Art, and Faith: Architectural Heritage and Islam project, funded by Templeton Religion Trust and a fellow at KITLV (The Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) funded by the Graham Foundation Grant. She completed her doctoral degree in architecture with a minor in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA). Her dissertation, entitled Breaking the Wall, Preserving the Barrier, was awarded as the Best Dissertation in Social Sciences in 2015 by the International Convention of Asia Scholars. Tutin's works revolve around gender and space, Islamic architecture, spatial justice, and postcolonial architecture.

Amanda Achmadi, University of Melbourne, Australia

Amanda Achmadi is an associate professor in architectural design, Asian architecture, and urbanism at the University of Melbourne. She obtained her PhD in Architecture and Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne in 2007. Her dissertation explores the role of architectural discourses within the 20th-century construction of cultural identity in Bali. Amanda is interested in looking at the interactions between architecture and identity politics and how these unfold in different historical periods: pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial eras. She has published extensively; one of her publications was a co-authored book chapter in Sir Banister Fletcher's Global History of Architecture (21st edition, 2019), which was awarded the 2020 Colvin Prize.

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