THE SHAPE OF A NEW REPUBLIC
Architecture, Infrastructure, and Everyday Modernity in Indonesia, 1945–1980
What does a newly independent nation look like when its identity is being built not only through politics, but also through buildings, roads, public spaces, housing, schools, markets, transportation networks, and the everyday environments in which people live?
THE SHAPE OF A NEW REPUBLIC explores the transformation of Indonesia’s built environment from the proclamation of independence in 1945 through the major social, political, economic, and developmental changes of the following decades. Focusing on the period from 1945 to 1980, this book examines how architecture and infrastructure became closely connected to the ambitions of a modern Indonesian state and to the changing experiences of ordinary people.
The decades after independence were marked by nation-building on an enormous scale. Cities expanded, new government institutions emerged, transportation networks were developed, educational and civic facilities multiplied, housing became an increasingly important concern, and new forms of commercial and public architecture reshaped urban life. At the same time, inherited colonial structures, local traditions, regional identities, technological limitations, economic pressures, and international influences continued to shape what could actually be built.
Rather than treating architecture as a collection of isolated monuments, this book places buildings within the wider systems that produced and sustained them. Government complexes, schools, universities, hospitals, markets, housing developments, transportation infrastructure, hotels, offices, cultural buildings, and public spaces are considered as parts of a broader process of modernization.
The book also considers the changing relationship between professional architects, engineers, planners, government institutions, contractors, developers, and communities. Their work reflected competing ideas about progress, national identity, functionality, aesthetics, technology, and the appropriate form of a modern Indonesian society.
From the reconstruction and consolidation of the early republic to the large-scale development programs of the 1960s and 1970s, THE SHAPE OF A NEW REPUBLIC follows the physical transformation of Indonesia while paying attention to the everyday realities behind it. It asks how modernization was experienced at street level: in homes, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, transportation systems, commercial districts, and public spaces.
The result is a multidisciplinary account of Indonesia's post-independence built environment—one that connects architectural history with infrastructure, urban development, technology, politics, economics, and everyday life.
Ultimately, THE SHAPE OF A NEW REPUBLIC is a study of how a nation sought to give physical form to independence. Between 1945 and 1980, Indonesia was not simply building new structures; it was constructing new institutions, new urban landscapes, new patterns of mobility, and new ideas about what modern life could mean.
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