PRESIDENT Sukarno expressed a desire to visit Friedrich Silaban’s house, but the architect told him not to. “My house is a gubuk, an old shed,” Silaban told Sukarno. Silaban was then living in a small house on Jalan Gedong Sawah II/19 in the West Java town of Bogor. “A maestro living in a gubuk? What would the world say!” Sukarno exclaimed.

So, says David A. Sagita, coordinator of a project aimed at inventorying Silaban’s works, the a