The lost of “Jagad Cilik” : Exploring Memory , Structuring Meaning the Modernity of Surabaya City.

Lilianny S ArifinArchitecture Department, Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia.Email : lili@petra.ac.id

AbstractChristopher Alexander in his book ‘Major Changes in Environmental Form Required by Social and Psychological Demands”, said that the city is not a tree. From the stone ages to machine ages, history has been stated that city was not growing but city was built. This was substantiated by the cities that had memory about colonialization. Surabaya is a city that has three memorials experience to be palace city, colonial city and independent city.

This study documents the birth of modernity in Surabaya city by hypothesizing three periods Surabaya as a palace city, Surabaya during colonialization and Surabaya after independence day of Indonesia. Traditionally, Surabaya city was based on anthropometrical concept. It means that city has heart, body and soul. The city of Surabaya is arranged by human scale. It puts in touch with the “jagad cilik” (infinite cosmos) and nature. It provides us with places and buildings for all human activities in which the citizens can live a full and harmonious life. Here the radiance of nature and heart are within our reach.

But during colonialization, the city, which has rightly come to be called the modern city, was represented by the finished concrete far the buildings, a louvered screen that replaces conventional verandah to keep sunlight from walls and windows. The buildings have been built with particularly developed, and standardized architectural features like flat iron railings, rainwater- spouts, undulatory glass panels and the use of bright secondary colours (orange, green and light yellow) for painting doors and windows.

And now after the independence period, Surabaya has grown up to metropolitan city and prescribing by technology and forgetting soul of the city, it is “jagad cilik” and its nature.

Key Word : city and modernity, memory , meaning and identity, Surabaya,“Jagad Cilik”

1. Who Framed the modernity of Surabaya City? : Exploring Memory of the City

The birth of modernity in Surabaya city was categorized into three periods, Surabaya as a palace city, Surabaya during colonialization and Surabaya after the independence day of Indonesia.

First Surabaya as a palace city. Sukadana (1973) noted that before 12 century the beach line of Surabaya was ended on ‘Dinoyo’, around nine and half kilometer from the recent beach line. On the 14 century, Majapahit Kingdom reach out its glorify and power in

Nusantara, and Hayam Wuruk as a King decided to place a prince in east Java, it was taken place in ‘Trowulan’ and developed the ‘Ujung Galuh’ as center port for trading.

On the ‘Trowulan’ ancient inscription , 13 century was written that Ujung Galuh as a transit port from big ship to small boat to reach the palace city of Majapahit. On the same time, Caesar Ku Bilai Khan dispatch his army called ‘Tar Tar’ to meet King Kertanegara in Kediri, and they stopped in Ujung Galuh port, the ‘Raden Widjaja” negiotiated to work together to attack Kediri. But the Jayakatwang’s army (who had killed Kertanegara) had gotten ready at the Pa-tshieh-kan (nowadays Pacekan is nearby Wonokromo’s floodgate) and attacked Tar Tar army. At the end Tar Tar was won, but Raden Widjaja had deceit and attacked back to Tar Tar army, and Widjaja was won. To celebrate and memorize the place that he won, he change the name of UjungGaluh to be ‘curabhaya’ means, dare for combat. It was 31 may 1293 ( since 1975, it decided to be the day of Surabaya city celebration annually. Before was celebrated on 1 April , according to the day when Dutch established the Gumeente Surabaya on 1 April 1906)

Entering 16 century, Majapahit was collapsed and Islam was took placed under Sultan Agung, the king of Mataram Kingdom, who stayed in the royal palace based in center of Java. He put a princess in Surabaya and built a ‘keraton’ (palace) which located in the kramat gantung and pahlawan streets. This ancient palace have been diminished during colonoialization by the new city planning , whether during the Dutch East Indies Company (Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie/ VOC) for developing trading and set up the Gumeente as ducth government for colonial politic. But, nowadays, we can still see the trace of palace in the form of ‘kampung-kampung’ with meaningful names, like kampung Maspati , a place for Patih ( chief Minister to King ), kampung Praban, a place for ‘Prabu’ ( Souverign), kampung Kranggan, a palce for ‘ ronggo’ ( person who make ‘keris’ , a wavy double –bladded dagger ) and also gate of ‘keraton’.

Tabel 1. The Beach Line Sedimentation of Surabaya

Predicted century

Distance from recent beach line

Predicted location in the recent map

12 9.5 km Dinoyo13 8.5 km Keputran14 6.5 km Gubeng, Embong - Embong, Kedungsari15 5.5 km Kabupaten, kranggan16 4.5 km Pecindilan, Semut, Pasar Besar17 3.5 km Krembangan, Slompretan18 2.5 km Ampel, Nyamplungan19 2 km Benteng

Source : Sukadana, 1973

After VOC entering Surabaya, they grouped into four ethnic settlements on the north of Surabaya, on the delta between pegirian and mas river. Inside the ‘Citadel Prins Hendrik’

fortress. They are Ethnic Arab was placed on the northern, then Melayu ethnic on the south, and after the ‘kembang djepun street , was the location for Chinese ethnic, while the Dutch stayed on the west of the Kali Mas river, and later on the early of 20 century the Dutch built another housing estate on the southern of fortress, at jalan simpang and darmo boulevard.

Figure 1. Map of the Citadel Prins Hendrik’ fortress, with 4 zones

During the city development, the previous place of Surabaya palace was ignored, politically and physically. Nowadays, people more pay attention these places as the oldest place of Surabaya, but actually is just because the building characters more strong, big and looks glorious. The city was developed under the influence of modern concept thatseparating the recreation from housing and working. Thus city was developed like a tree which must have connection of each branch of zoning in the city. Planner more focused on how to developing city as a thing of modernization then as a community.

Figure 2. Above the center of the colonial govern, Below, the center of ‘keraton’ govern

When we think in terms of trees we are trading the humanity and richness of the living city for a conceptual simplicity which benefits only designers, planners, administrators and developers. Every time a piece of a city is torn out, and a tree made to replace the semi lattice that was there before, it is kampung and its ‘jagad cilik’, and the city takes a further step toward dissociation.

Grouping and categorization in the city planning are among the most primitive psychological processes. Modern psychology treats thought as a process of fitting new situations into existing slots and cubicle in the mind. Just as you cannot put a physical thing into more than one physical pigeonhole at once, so, by analogy, the processes of thought prevent you from putting a mental construct into more than one mental category at once. The city is a receptacle for life. If the receptacle severs the overlap of the strands of life within it, because it is a tree, it will be like a bowl full of razor blades on edge, ready to cut up whatever is entrusted to it. In such a receptacle life will be cut to pieces. If we make cities which are trees, they will cut our life within to pieces.

2. “Jagad Cilik” in Surabaya City : Structuring Meaning of the Modernity

When we talk about modernity, we must talk about the ages before. We can’t say that we are modern people when we did not know what did we look before. Thus, when we discuss about Surabaya as a modern city, we can’t just paying attention on certain ages. Most of the literature study modernity in developing countries in relation with colonialization. But, actually modernity itself has been starting before colonialization. When people had known about fashion, other transportation instead of horse, manner about eating, it means that they are modern contextually on its age.

To understand about modernity in Surabaya, we must carefully observe the growth of city. As people took place nearby river to start their life and living, Javanese people has their own way of life how to built the place for living. Javanese people believe that in the world consists of two cosmos, micro cosmos is the people’s life and macro cosmos is the nature surrounding them. So that why the harmony of life when people can live together with nature in balancing of graciousness. People should not kill animals or cut the trees without considering them as part of the universe balancing. This balancing brings them to live peacefully in the world. People and nature always live in relation to their destiny. Each reality in live must have relation with other reality too. (Suseno, 1988:90).

Some Figures below want to show that ‘jagad cilik’ was still exist, eventhough inside the kampung ‘jagalan’ , one of the kampung nearby the place of ‘keraton’.

In a ‘kampung’ this is what does happens. Play takes place in a thousand places it fills the interstices of adult life. As they play, children become full of their surroundings. How can children become filled with their surroundings in a fenced enclosure! They cannot.

Ironically, the concept of modern city (from CIAM) is the separation of recreation from everything else. This has crystallized in our real cities in the form of playgrounds. The playground, asphalted and fenced in, is nothing but a pictorial acknowledgment of the fact that 'play' exists as an isolated concept in our minds. It has nothing to do with the life of play itself. Few self-respecting children will even play in a playground.

Play itself, the play that children practice, goes on somewhere different every day. One day it may be indoors, another day in a friendly gas station, another day down by the river, another day in a derelict building, another day on a construction site which has been abandoned for the weekend. Each of these play activities, and the objects it requires, forms a system. It is not true that these systems exist in isolation, cut off from the other systems of the city. The different systems overlap one another, and they overlap many other systems besides. The units, the physical places recognized as play places, must do the same.

Since, as designers, we are concerned with the physical living city and its physical backbone, we must naturally restrict ourselves to considering sets which are collections of material elements such as people, blades of grass, cars, molecules, houses, gardens, water pipes, the water molecules in them etc

In a ‘kampung’ society, if we ask a man to name his best friends and then ask each of these in turn to name their best friends, they will all name each other so that they form a closed group. A village is made up of a number of separate closed groups of this kind. But today's social structure is utterly different. If we ask a man to name his friends and then ask them in turn to name their friends, they will all name different people, very likely unknown to the first person; these people would again name others, and so on outwards. There are virtually no closed groups of people in modern society. The reality of today's social structure is thick with overlap - the systems of friends and acquaintances form a semi lattice, not a tree

What is modernity ? Can modernity strengthen the character of the city? Our perception and sense of existence, from industrial to information technologies, our thoughts, emotions and actions, are subject to increasingly disparate asymmetries, like wikipedia, youTube, face book, things that may be symbols, and symbols that may be things. Images, data and technology are only meaningful if they can be considered in wider human relations. If they can not, then they seems mute and absurd. We are at risk of the lost of ‘Jagad Cilik’ , the coming of tumultuous architecture. .

In the name of vision and creativity, the manifestation of image, and the developing modes of transmission have been saturating us. Our experience of space and time has become diffused and confused. The architecture as visual image has become an experience commodity. Our other senses are becoming de- sensitized. Architecture requires us constantly to reinterpret and revalue technologies in human and social terms.

Sustaining “jagad cilik – jadag cilik’ in the city , is one of the attempts to sustain all the components of humanity. How to concerns itself with individual lives in holistic way. Because sustainability is not just talking about reducing energy consumption, but how human culture and its jagad cilik’, tradition, religion, joy, pain and the intangible components of humanity can be sustained in the face of modernity.

3. From Memory To Identity: Re-formulating the lack of “jagad cilik” in Golden Square of Surabaya.

As said before, Dutch’s rule control and manage every activities of the local residence, like education, trade, religion and politics. Suryadinata (1986) wrote that Dutch govern with constitution of limited zone forbid Chinese people from living outside the housing area that had been announced. Thus they inhabited on the square zone that popular with china town. Physically the china town bordered by four street, Kempang Jepun street (was Handelstraat), Slompretan (Chinese Breestraat), Coklat street (Tepekongstraat) and Karet street ( Chinese Voorstraat). Economically, china town was a generator of Surabaya city throughout the time, from colonialization ( because handels means trade) up to recent day, was called “the golden square”.

The ‘Golden Square’, the hustling and lively street bear out that the area has its own ‘jagad cilik’. The problem came out at the 1990, when property business was booming, many housing estates promoted the better living at the west and east Surabaya. Surabaya is becoming growth greater. People prefer to live separated from their working house. The atmosphere of ‘jagad cilik’ has been losing at night, because most of dwellers did not sleep at their shop-houses anymore. As a consequence, the golden square just life during the day and become silence and dead at night.

On 2003, the local government revitalized Kembang jepun, the main street of golden square, and developed a place for eating and leisure at night, called “kya kya’ ( kya kya, Chinese word means taking a walk for leisure). Istanto (2003) wrote, the revitalization has aim to change people’s perception about Kembang Jepun that has some negative aspects, dark, unsafe place at night, far from city center. Unfortunately, since 2005 ‘kya kya’ has not existed anymore. The City offers a potent to interpret the exclusionary politics of place transformation (Chang and Huang, 2005). What we are concerned with, instead, is the simultaneity of urban creativity and destruction, in the context of landscape evolution from a working to a leisure – heritage environment.

An understanding of sense of place for which places are not merely objects, but objects for subjects, is needed. The sense of place can most usefully be conceptualized in terms of the structure of feeling, called ‘jagad cilik’. Tuan (1974) in similar way founded that adult's memories of childhood's special places concludes that special places are sought out during middle childhood when the roots of the adult notion of a sense of place are established. Thus, as an architect, we can built a building but we can not create the feeling of unique atmosphere. The space that fill and can make memories come out, is the relations, perceptions, attitudes, values, and world view that affectively bond people and place.

According to Kevin Lynch, a region can be evaluated by finding out how clearly its territories are marked, whether the transitions are adequate, how finely the space is divided, whether the desired range of behavior is provided for, whether all social groups have territories of their own, and how well users understand and agree on the meanings and boundaries of those territories. More importantly, the identification of places, as well

as their organization into mental structures, not only allows people to function effectively but is also a source of emotional security, pleasure and understanding, that is called ‘jagad cilik’.

The ‘jagad cilik’, takes us into delight in physically distinctive, recognizable locales and attach our feelings and meanings to them. Place character is often recalled with affection; its lack is a frequent subject of popular complaint. People are pleased to "know" a great city, or to understand its history. Indeed, a strong sense of place supports our sense of personal identity. This study support the important of the sense of place and time, Kevin Lynch suggests designers and planners to develop norms for the ability of children to explore their territory, or of the elderly or the handicapped ; to traverse the region the degree to which an area should contain visual reminders of its past use and form ; develop a plan for region-wide historic conservation, and set up programs of public education in regional history. Modernization for city, it does not means to play with history through conservation or revitalization, but this is not enough: the freedom and life of every single individual should be respected, and plan of development should be in accordance with those individuals. This means taking master plans to micro level, by which we can develop strong and creative society, develop recognizable individuality of city, as place to live.

Today we can see globalization everyway, it seams like we will become one culture, one language, and one economy … My opinion is that ‘jagad cilik’ has to be cultivated as precious and not considered to be obstacles. Obstacles have to be removed by mutual understanding and respect. We should respect different cultures, languages and traditions as equally good and precious as ours, and this is the way to equality. Differences are good to keep the world interesting and fair place, and they shouldn’t be considered as point of separation, but as the point of union what every border is. Non respecting the border is sign that the stronger one doesn’t respect weaker. This is the case in marriage, family, between cities, regions, countries, races. Finally, we should say yes to development and progress, but by improving, and not by copying.

Society, cultures, cities are made of people the ‘jagad cilik’, and on the other part they are the frame with natural environment. So individuals should care for society, and society should care for every natural environment. I think that we are now on that critical point of history, when people should understand thier position, duty and responsibility towards society and nature, because system could fall otherwise. Human creativity and effort creates economy of the country, human mind creates science, human wisdom and intellect creates philosophy, culture, theology… All society is based on human values of ‘jagad cilik’ , without them system does not exists.

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