jailcd2016059: Bringing Back Memory in Public Space: Reconstructing Effortof Fatahillah Square and Unterneustadt Kassel

Abstract

In an urban space, so many memories can be found. These memories may affect people and people’s ability to remember will depend on the quality of the built environment. The built environment is one of human efforts to form the immateriality of memory. With these physical elements, people’s remembrance process expected to be much easier. Unfortunately, whether these memories can be restored or not will depend on the hegemony of political and economy in a related time. Reconstruction is one of the efforts in bringing back physical memory that has already lost. As a town with plentiful memory, Oud Batavia or known as Jakarta Old Town, has undergone many change in its morphological form. After being a bus terminal, Fatahillah Square in the Jakarta Old Town is reconstructed based on a painting by Johannes Ranch from 18th century. Another case is in the Unterneustadt or lower new town in Kassel. The public space of Unterneustadt that already became a ruin because of war, is reconstructed based on the concept of critical reconstruction by Josef P. Klehues. This paper then will try to explain a brief of their different effort in reconstructing, in case of Fatahillah Square and Unterneustadt Public Space.