Revealing the Old Dragon in the City of Heroes

MARIA BETHANIA
Student
Petra Christian University
Surabaya, Indonesia
m22415091@john.petra.ac.i​d

SHERINA SUHARTANJI
Student
Petra Christian University
Surabaya, Indonesia
m22416143@john.petra.ac.id
Abstract. The shophouses are well known as the home of chinese ancestors that worked as
traders and widespread through the regions of Asia. These chinese shophouses has become a
part of Kembang Jepun Street’s identity since the period of Dutch colonial. Located in the
heart of the “City of Heroes” (Surabaya) this street was once one of the main attractions in
Surabaya. In order to revitalize and conserve the local heritage treasure the government has
issued policies regarding the architectural preservation through urban land use plan
strategies and municipal regulations. However these policies have yet to overcome the
conservation challenges within kembang jepun in the current year and there are actions need
to be taken. Looking through the example of how George’s Town Penang succeed in
revitalized their architectural heritage in Armenian Street inspired us to find better ways to
revitalize and conserve our own and also promote local tourism on the way.

Keywords: ​Conservation, revitalization, historical building, kembang jepun, George town

Penang
1. Introduction
Indonesia specifically Surabaya, known as the
City of heroes has been woven by a long history
and reinforced with rich cultural diversity. These
long history bequeath many heritage buildings
which made a big impact to the city’s landscape
and urban planning. In the history of Surabaya,
the Chinese became one of the most important
ethnic groups in Surabaya (Widodo, 2002).
According to Faber in Handinoto (1996: 66), the
Chinese community has existed in Surabaya
since 1411 which initially occupied an area in
East Kalimantan called the Chinese Camp.
During the Colonial period, the Chinese
community had the role of intermediary traders
among native people as producers of agricultural
products and then sold them to large European
traders (Handinoto 1999: 24).
This City of Heroes is also known as Beneden
Stad or Lower City. The long history of Beneden
Stad can be seen through the existence of
buildings erected in different periods, from the
1870s to the 1900s with diverse architectural
styles (Kwanda, 2004: 1). In the old times, the
Dutch Colonial Government have a unique way
to form a city by dividing clusters based on
ethnicity. Lower city or Beneden Stad consists
of the European Region, the Chinese Region and
the Arab Region (Handinoto, 1996: 91). The
European region is located in the west. Jembatan
Merah and the Chinese, Malay and Arabic
Regions are located east of the Jembatan Merah
(Handinoto 1996).
These impacts can be seen at some areas such as
Karet Streets, Kembang Jepun streets, Kampung
Arab, Kampung bubutan, etc. Specifically at
Kembang Jepun streets, as a part of the old city,
there are many old historical buildings and
shophouses that are deteriorating day by day.
These silent witness of Surabaya’s largest
business and trade Center development progress
is a part of the jewel in the City that should be
protected and maintained. Although these assets
have been degraded It still can be revitalized
through conservation. By preserving the original
state of the building, the authentic atmosphere
and the ‘genius loci’ of the place can be revealed
in current time.
Based on the study at the old town George Town
Penang, the authenticity of the place could
attract local tourists. And with a good marketing,
It could even attract the international tourists.
This fact has been proven by the increase of the
Malaysia and Penang’s GDP by average annual
growth of 5% for the past six years. For 2018,
Penang’s economic development is projected to
be positive as well. Penang consistently
contributes 6% of Malaysia’s GDP, and the
figure is increasing. (Penang Monthly, 2018).
Not only Penang, Kembang Jepun Streets in
Surabaya also can thrive into a better site. As
part of the old town, Kembang Jepun had a
potential not only for commercial area,but also
could be developed as a heritage tourism area.
Since the issuance of Mayor Decree No. 188.45
/ 251/251 / 402.1.04 / 1996, efforts to preserve
buildings and historic areas in the city of
Surabaya began to be officially conducted
(Poerbantanoe 2001: 44). Application of
preservation in Surabaya has in fact experienced
several obstacles, notably lack of information,
motivation and public awareness about the
importance of the existence of the Kembang
Jepun area as a cultural preservation (Bappeko
2003). Even though government were starting to
revitalized some of the building but still there
are several investors think that revitalize is a
waste of money and not profitable enough.
Conservation is an effort to protect and
maintenance of things to prevent damage
(KBBI) and destruction by preserving the
environment and maintaining the presence of
each component for future use (Sora, 2015).
According to Budiharjo (1991), conservation
were divided into seven types. There are
conservation, preservation, revitalized
adaptation, gentrification, renovation, addition
and demolition. conservation is an effort to
preserve a built environment, so that the
meaning of its environment can be maintained,
streamline its use, and regulate the direction of
it’s development in the future. preservation is an
effort to preserve the environment in its original
condition and prevent the damage process.
Revitalization adaptation is an attempt to change
the built environment so that it can be used for
suitable new functions, without requiring drastic
changes. gentrification is an effort to increase
the vitality of an urban area through efforts to
improve the quality of its environment, but
without causing significant changes from the
physical structure of the area. Renovation is the
act of changing the interior of a building by
adapting the building to new uses and modern
concepts. Addition is the construction of new
buildings in an area that is preserved by
abstracting the existing forms of buildings.
Demolition is an overhaul of buildings that are
damaged or dangerous.
This research aims to improve the building
quality and vitality by revitalization and
conservation which can improve the existence of
Kembang Jepun Streets. This study were based
on study at George town Penang and
strengthened with some information from
websites, books, and journals. The results of this
study are expected to encourage conservation of
historic ancient buildings by the people and the
city government.
2. Theoretical Basis ​(Chinese Architecture)
Identification and Characteristic
Kembang Jepun street corridor consists of 28%
ancient heritage buildings or 24 buildings in
total.
Heritage buildings in Kembang Jepun area has
different purposes such as (67%) tradings, (8%)
services (8%) offices, (6%) residential, (6%)
warehouse, (4%) place of worship and (1%)
education. As many as 19% heritage buildings
gone through functional shifting while 81% still
retain its original function. The renovation on
the heritage buildings 46% was done on the
inside as the owner had difficulties and little
knowledge of how to maintain the building.
Source :​ ​Any Virgyani, 2004
3. Methodology and Discussion
Analysis
Based on Dr. Lik Meng Lee research, George
Town, Penang has more than 200 years of urban
history and the largest collection of heritage
shophouses in Southeast Asia. These heritage
buildings have remained unchanged since the
1800s. There were several acts in order to
preserve George’s Town shophouses as their
local architectural heritage. One of the acts were
to maintain the 9 shophouses specifically on
Armenian Street nearby a chinese temple.
The actions and regulations applied by the
George’s town government on armenian
shophouses will be analyzed with descriptive
analysis method which allows us to learn from
past decisions, and find out how they might
influence future performance. Through the
methods we will learn which architectural
regulation will be able to support the Kembang
Jepun’s architecture conservation.
The architecture regulation plan then will be
shared publicly and expressed in an open
discussion event at Petra Christian’s University.
The architectural conservation guidance would
be able to act as an alternative option for the
government’s strategy plan specialized in
kembang jepun’s architecture restoration and
conservation.
Penang Conservation Regulations and
Actions taken
Malaysian’s Penang government set 9 chinese
shophouses in Armenian Street as heritage
buildings with the owner’s permission in order
to conserve and revitalize the architectural
heritage of George’s town. The shophouses
facade were then remodeled to it’s original form
in order to maintain the architectural elements,
however the shophouses were painted red to
match one another and is believed to symbolise
happiness in chinese.
There’s a pilot program where Think City​1
would channel funds to the owner for the
conservation of the building exterior, whereas
ACHR​2 would provide funds in terms of loan to
the tenants, for the renovation of the interior.
Thus, both owner and tenants will contribute to
the funding of restoration work. Think City’s
criterion to the property owner was that the
tenants who intend to stay were not evicted,
whereas ACHR stated that the fund would only
be extended when tenants received proper
tenancy agreement. Tenants participating in the
pilot program have been promised a ten-year
tenancy agreement as this was calculated to be
the optimum time they would need to repay the
loan.
Results in George’s Town
The 9 shophouses became a tourist attraction
lead to rising of the economic condition of the
local people and more equal distribution of
Malaysian citizens.
Surabaya Conservation Regulations
According to Surabaya Municipal Regulation
No. 3 Yr. 2007, Kembang Jepun was directed to
be a CBD 1 (Central Business District) region in
order to support the land use as trading and
service facility. It was also set to be a trading
area in a regional and city’s service scale by
referring to Surabaya Urban Land Use Plan Yr.
2007-2027.
Surabaya City Municipal Regulation No. 5 years
2005 Article 11 paragraph 4 states that "C class
cultural heritage buildings are cultural heritage
buildings that can be restored by means of
revitalization / adaptation". Provisions on the
conservation of class C cultural heritage
buildings are regulated in Surabaya City
Regulation No. 5 years 2005 Article 16, as
mentioned below :
a. Changes to the building can be done on
condition that it retains the appearance of the
main building including its color, details and
ornaments;
b. The colors, details and ornaments of the
modified building parts are adjusted to the
original building architecture;
c. The addition of buildings in site or parcels can
only be done behind the cultural heritage
buildings and must be adapted to the architecture
of the cultural heritage buildings in harmony
with the site structure; and
d. The function of the building can be changed
according to the city plan.
Surabaya’s Government Acts to Support the
Conservation Plan
The ​TribunJatim.com ​mentioned on January 21​st
2019, the local government is starting to
collaborate with a team consisting of regional
department of cultural and tourism and also a
team of cultural heritage experts to redesign the
colors Kembang Jepun’s shophouses and then
repainted them with the designated colors.
Meaning that the government starting to take
actions to enact the second point of the
Municipal Regulation No. 5 years 2005 Article
11 paragraph 4.
Results in Kembang Jepun
Source : tribunjatim.com
Source : Lamudi Real Estate
Source : rumahdijual.com
Challenges in Kembang Jepun
A few of the heritage buildings were already
remodeled completely by the owners into a
modern shophouse. The modern shophouse
facades are made of glass window and steel
frames. There are some heritage buildings that
were painted with contrast bright colors by the
owners, not realising they have altered the
shophouse original identity into something else
and thus losing it’s heritage value of
architecture. Meanwhile, the existing ancient
heritage buildings that hasn’t changed mostly
already deteriorated and abandoned.
Another challenge has surfaced after those
unfortunate events. Recently, the government
team has mentioned that there are 104 houses in
Kembang Jepun that needed to be repainted but
so far only 40 of them supported the plan.
(memontum.com, 2019)
Necessary Actions to be Taken
Since the local government has acknowledged
the impact of the heritage’s building color, the
government should consider the restoration of
the shophouses facade to it’s original state in
order to successfully maintain it’s architectural
heritage value (take George’s Town Armenian
Street for example). Such actions however
would require more than just the government’s
actions, the support of the property’s owners and
the contribution of society are also necessary to
sustain the very existence of Kembang Jepun’s
culture heritage to thrive. Below are the
examples of what current heritage buildings
original state supposedly looked like.
 1. Original State in 1930 :

Source : Surabaya Tempo Dulu media via

facebook

Source : SbyTempoDoeloe via twitter Current State in 2018

Current State in 2018 :

Source : google street maps

3. Original State in 1950

Source : google street maps

2. Original State in 1930 : Source : http://media-kitlv.library.leiden.edu/

Current State in 2018

Source : google street maps
An example of successful conservation can be
seen below.
Original State in 1936
Source : Surabaya Tempo Dulu media via
facebook
Current State in 2018
Source : google street maps
There are barely any major changes to be seen
through the building’s facade therefore the
architectural identity and the building’s image
are maintained and preserved. However there’s a
case where a building’s heritage is
well-preserved architecturally but not conserved
as it should be, as an example :
Original State in 1910
Source : SbyTempoDoeloe via twitter
Current State in 2018
Source : google street maps
4. Conclusion
George’s Town achievements regarding the
conservation of their heritage site can be
achieved through hard work and good teamwork
by the non-government community and the local
government itself. The news media has shown
that the Surabaya city’s government has also
actively participated in acts to conserve culture
in the developmental streets of Kembang Jepun.
The effort to gather expert cultural heritage team
in order to redesign the colors of the houses
along the corridor. In brief, our aim in this paper
is to provide a reference to the conservation
efforts that have been carried out by the George
Town government and non-government
community that have successfully managed to
preserve their architectural heritage as well as
being named by UNESCO as one of the world
heritage sites. We personally think that the
developmental area of Kembang Jepun has
many advantages and potential to achieve those
things as well, if the society and the community
of various groups are willing to contribute to the
conservation of our cultural heritage and brought
back the “old dragon of the city of heroes”.
Notes :
1. Think City is a special purpose vehicle set up
under the federal government investment
company to provide financial assistance for
urban regeneration in the inner city of George’s
Town.
2. ACHR is a regional network of grassroots
community organizations, NGOs, professionals
involved with the urban poor development
processes in Asian cities
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