Représentations architecturales et processus identitaires : le cas de l’Indonésie

• Main Author: Antonio Guerreiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Provence 2007-12-01
• Series: Moussons
• Subjects: representation; architecture; museography; identity markers and processes; semiology; national culture
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1783
• ISSN: 1620-3224; 2262-8363

In Indonesia, as in the other countries of insular Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan), the house, used either as a dwelling or for ceremonial occasions, is a focus of identity at both the ethnic and regional levels. As a building, the house is a focus of displays, both in museums (architectural features, sculptures, decorative patterns, house models) and for tourism, sometimes associated with the concept of the “living museum.” The idea of “representation” is defined along its various meanings, by analyzing the position of the units of meaning underlying the representational process, in a semiological perspective, following Barthes’ approach—particularly, by comparing the concepts of index (reference), icon (likeness), and symbol (convention). The Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah), an architectural theme park built in 1975 in the suburbs of Jakarta under Pres-ident Suharto’s New Order regime, constitutes a paradigmatic example. It inventorizes the country’s built heritage in an all-encompassing representation of the national culture, in a set stressing the transition to what is viewed as “modernity.” The concept of “cultural diversity,” as displayed in the layout of cultural and regional identity markers developed at Taman Mini, is shown to sharply differ from its standard museographic rendering in Indonesia.