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Solo to draft heritage master plan
The administration of Surakarta, popularly known as Solo, has decided to resume drawing up the master plan for turning the municipality into a heritage city, a process which has been on hold for the last five years
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he administration of Surakarta, popularly known as Solo, has decided to resume drawing up the master plan for turning the municipality into a heritage city, a process which has been on hold for the last five years.
Surakarta City Spatial Planning Agency head Endah Sitaresmi said that the municipality was one of 12 cities across Indonesia that had been mandated by the central government to prepare a master plan to follow up the 2008 heritage-city declaration.
'We need the master plan to guide the city's spatial planning in accordance with the rules of a heritage city,' said Endah, adding that Surakarta joined the World Heritage City network in 2008.
The master plan, she added, would be drawn up according to rules stipulated in the Indonesian Heritage City Preservation Charter launched by the Public Works Ministry in December 2013.
According to the charter, a heritage city is defined as a city or regency having special heritage assets, which may be intangible, like the arts, or tangible, such as buildings and artifacts.
Endah blamed the five-year delay in drafting the master plan on miscommunication between the respective municipal apparatus working units, in this case the City Spatial Planning Agency and the Culture and Tourism Agency.
She said in the near future a Surakarta heritage-city team would be established and would comprise representatives from the administration and academics as well as the public and private sectors.
The team would be tasked with making an inventory of the city's tangible and intangible heritage assets, she added. 'We have listed the tangible assets, while officials at the Culture and Tourism Agency have to list the city's intangible assets,' Endah said.
She said her agency had finished collating the city's heritage buildings and objects in 2012, with no less than 70 cultural objects included in the list.
Separately, local activist Wiyono said that the administration's moves to follow up on the heritage-city declaration had not been visible.
'There are many tangible and intangible heritage assets that can be developed to realize the plan of Solo as a heritage city,' said Wiyono.
Solo artist Suprapto Suryodarmo said, however, that the city had drawn up a calendar of events to showcase the various intangible heritage assets in the city.
