Pasar Johar
Life and Living in The ‘Big Village’
THE future of Pasar Johar (Johar Market) in Semarang, Central Java, designed by Herman Thomas Karsten, is becoming more and more uncertain. The market with its unique architectural design, in the form of a mushroom-shaped roof, has escaped demolition by the Semarang City Government a number of times. The rationale for demolition is revitalization. There is an investor who is willing to replace the marketplace with a six-story building. The most recent recommendation is to elevate the marketplace built in 1939, in order to avoid high tides. The various plans will not only threaten cultural preservation, but also eliminate the livelihoods of those who have depended on the “big village” called Pasar Johar for decades.
June 26, 2007
SONNY Rohani took out the two crumpled envelopes from his shirt pocket. The 70-year-old man placed the contents carefully on his stall table. There is a picture postcard of Pasar Johar in the 1950s, a piece of the market plan, a map of aloon-aloon (main town square) of the city of Semarang, and—more important—a piece of yellowish paper full of holes caused by termites. This last piece was the market tax in the name of Siti Rochmah, Sonny’s
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