Vibrant the City
Coloring Historic City of Singapore, Malacca & Kali Besar

Generally people might not notice that there are appealing buildings that they’re passing every day of their lives. The sense of ignorance to places simply just melts those engaging historic buildings with the color of roads mixed with sometimes traffic jam and eventually they are left unnoticed. It had become public knowledge that Kali Besar- Jakarta is a neglected precious historic buildings area. It’s ashamed that we have done so little of what is so big valued historical downtown of Jakarta. Some of the fortunate preserved historic buildings façade were leave as it was by color and material. Few –though we can’t called it unfortunatewere painted with new colors based on perhaps the personal preference of the owner regardless the total entity of Kali Besar strip.

While the rest of it suffered gradual destruction caused by both humans and nature. Wrecked walls and windows leaves dramatic sight of the untold but blatant failure of preserving heritage buildings in the Jakarta Kota area.

Recently a work committee was set up to revitalize one of the old neglected buildings from the 1800s standing at a corner of Kali Besar street. Planned to be named ‘KOTA BAWAH’, the committee drive an optimistic dream to make it a center for Art and Culture, Heritage and Education. They carried out a revitalization plan to leave the trace of history untouched as much as possible.

What if one decided to put new different pulsating colors to these sometimes-forgettable historical buildings? Would it suddenly shimmers out of the blue and makes a better thing?