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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.

Publication Date

7-30-2024

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Submitted Date

2023-07-31

Accepted Date

2024-05-08

First Page

251

Last Page

272

Authors' Bio

Tutin Aryanti
tutin@upi.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-0680

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
aachmadi@unimelb.edu.au
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3555-923X

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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