ACT Guest Seminar 1st May 2024

Maria Ariadne Dewi Wulansari

The Architecture, Culture & Tectonics Research Group warmly invites you to attend their Seminar on Wednesday 1st May 2024 at 12pm in Lenton Firs B38.

 

Wednesday, 1 May 2024

12:00–13:00

B38 Lenton Firs

 

This study discusses the case of Javanese people living in Kotagede, a Region in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; where 40% of traditional Javanese houses were sold after the 2006 earthquake hit. The focus is on the stories of the owners and caretakers of reconstructed traditional timber houses (the Omah Joglo); why they insisted on keeping the houses, their hard effort to rebuild them after the disaster, and the reality that they face every day: the obstacles that they have in maintaining the tangible and intangible heritage attached on these houses.
This research shows that even though they practice modern living, the Kotagede community have this special way of staying connected to Javanese culture. Therefore, maintaining the Omah Joglo is their way to serve their ancestors, which is a good deed in both their culture and religion. It also revealed that most traditional building construction and maintenance knowledge is mainly stored not in the written form but as an oral heritage in the Javanese community. One of the problems they are facing is that as technology advances, the number of construction workers skilled in traditional construction areas also decreases yearly. Other than that, the cost of teak wood used in this Omah Joglo is getting out of their reach. With these conditions, the Omah Joglo maintenance is becoming a big challenge for the community. 

Maria Ariadne Dewi Wulansari is a PhD student in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Dr Paolo Beccarelli and Prof Jonathan Hale. Her research interests include post-disaster architecture studies, traditional structure design, and teaching structure to architecture students.