Colonial architecture of Indonesia
Colonial architecture of Indonesia Dutch colonial architecture in Indonesia was predominantly built in Java, however, buildings from the Dutch East Indies era were built across the archipelago. The 16th and 17th centuries saw the arrival of European powers in Indonesia who used masonry for much of their construction. Previously timber and its by-products had been almost exclusively used in Indonesia, with the exception of some major religious and palace architecture. One of the 1st major Dutch settlements was Batavia which in the 17th and 18th centuries was a fortified brick and masonry city. For almost two centuries, the colonialists did little to adapt their European architectural habits to the tropical climate. In Batavia, for example, they constructed canals through its low-lying terrain, which were fronted by small-windowed and poorly ventilated row houses, mostly in a Chinese-Dutch hybrid style. The canals became dumping grounds for noxious waste and sewage and an ideal breedin...