TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Museum Bank Mandiri: Capturing moments lost in time

A multitude of cars, buses and motorbikes swarm by it each day as it stands majestically but quietly in Jakarta's Old Town

Simon Marcus Gower (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, September 10, 2008

Share This Article

Change Size

Museum Bank Mandiri: Capturing moments lost in time

A multitude of cars, buses and motorbikes swarm by it each day as it stands majestically but quietly in Jakarta's Old Town.

It is literally a monolithic reminder of times gone by -- yet for all the traffic that busily and noisily passes by it, it seems relatively few stop by to see what lies behind the mighty white walls of the Museum Bank Mandiri.

Traffic streams past the Museum Bank Mandiri, a mighty building left over from Dutch colonial times, in Old Town, North Jakarta. (JP/Simon Marcus Gower)

The development of this building occurred between 1929 and 1933. It was developed for the Dutch bank of Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM) and, no doubt, its powerful design was intended as a statement of Dutch colonial rule. But that design -- by the Dutch architects de Bruyn, Smits and van de Linde -- was not matched by longevity of colonial rule.

What can be seen is, in some respects, a building seemingly frozen in time. It appears that little has really changed within the building since its opening for business in the Old Town area in the early 1930s.

What has certainly changed, however, is the manner in which the building is used on a day-to-day basis. It was built as a banking center but today the only public banking that goes on here is via a small automatic teller machine at the front of the building.

Upon entering the building one soon sees that is was built long before the advent of such machines and computer technology. Having climbed the stairs at the entrance a high banking counter is reached. Here a highly defensive and security conscious iron bar cage separates the public space from the area that the tellers would have once occupied.

Immediately above this separating counter and cage is a sign with the Dutch guidelines to the banking services that were available. Further down the great length of the marble topped counter that once must have been busy with transactions the iron bars give way to an open counter.

On the other side of the counter there are then various desks and cabinets that appear to be original but are no longer actively used for their original purpose.

Also on this side of the counter is an extensive collection of models of bank buildings and a remarkable collection of old photographs of branches of the NHM that were dotted around Indonesia and similarly housed in superb-looking colonial era buildings.

Towards the rear of this main banking space is a large vault; with its hefty security door left ajar it has an almost eerie appearance as within it is only darkness and emptiness.

In this main banking area, too, there are cabinets displaying the tools and equipment -- the paraphernalia -- of banking. From early massive automatic teller machines to weighing scales, old phones and dusty old typewriters, it seems that nothing has been dispensed with and all is, at times, curiously displayed.

Amongst the more interesting -- indeed fascinating -- exhibits on display is an enormous ledger book that dates back hundreds of years. It is carefully and protectively displayed in a glass cabinet that shows off its immense size. Being left open it also exhibits the exquisite penmanship of years gone by, with all entries being handwritten.

Walking through the main banking area the visitor arrives at a balcony that effectively cloisters in a central courtyard, which simultaneously provides a little greenery within the predominantly white building and further shows up the great size of the building.

It is a vast structure of more than 20,000 square meters and yet it is quiet and comparatively hardly occupied today. The predominance of white and the wooden furnishings add to a rather muted tone to the building.

Color though is to be found up the stairs from the main banking area. From outside the building, long, central windows can be seen but they cannot be appreciated in the same way that they can be from within the building -- for these are stained-glass windows that from within can be seen to be bursting with color.

These original windows predominately feature female figures in flowing robes that are significantly made up of deep blues made vibrant thanks to the light penetrating from outside.

But other aspects of these extensive stain glass windows highlight the colonial past and it is in the details that the windows are perhaps at their finest and most interesting. There are numerous sailing ships represented, signifying the means via which the Dutch first arrived to these shores and began to gather riches here.

There are other evidently Dutch colonial faces in the windows and there is one particularly fine figure with a hard-looking face very well represented in a 17th century costume.

But there are also two seemingly peasant farmer figures toiling in the fields, which seems to be a small admission that rulers were getting rich off the toil of others.

There is, then, grandeur to this remarkable building -- but there are also finer points of detail that show craftsmanship and subtly in their design and execution.

Its originators would have had active use of it for less than a decade before the World War II broke out and brought massive changes to this part of the world and their world of colonial domination. It is that time and era that seems still to reside here.

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.