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Jakarta loses its great chronicler Adolf Heuken at age 90
Renowned chronicler of Jakarta Adolf Heuken, known for his written works on the city’s historic sites, died at the age of 90 on Thursday evening.
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A mourner prays in front of the coffin of late pastor Adolf Heuken at Kolese Kanisius Chapel in Central Jakartaon July 26. Heuken died on July 25 at the age of 90. (JP/Seto Wardhana.)
"A city without old buildings is like a man without a memory,” Adolf Heuken, a prolific writer about Jakarta's heritage, once said. His death at age 90 in Jakarta on Thursday evening is considered by many to be a great loss for the city once named Batavia.
The German-born Jesuit – also known among friends and colleagues as Father Heuken – rose to prominence as a key figure in the contemporary recognition of culturally and historically significant buildings and monuments in the capital city.
Initially writing about spirituality and Catholicism shortly after he moved to Indonesia in the early 1960s, Heuken gradually became intrigued by the historical value inherent in old, often dilapidated buildings scattered across the country, including in Jakarta.
He would later dedicate himself to the tall task of visiting these overlooked sites, collecting information and meeting with the right people who could help him shed light on the city’s past incarnations.
These concrete reminders of days gone by, leftovers of the country’s long colonial history, would become the subject of Heuken’s seminal books, most notably History of Catholic Churches in Indonesia (1971), Historical Sites of Jakarta (1982) and The Original Sources of Jakarta History, vol. I-III (1999).
Educated in philosophy and theology, his works spread across several fields of study such as moral education and Christian spirituality. Not to mention he also authored German-Indonesian and Indonesian-German dictionaries.
In an interview with The Jakarta Post in 2002, he said if all his works were arranged in a line it would reached three meters in length.
