TIMESINDONESIA, JAKARTA – Tough it's called Fortress City, it's not the name of a town in Indonesia. It's rather a way to call one particular area in Cakranegara, Lombok in Nusa Tenggara Barat Province.
Retain its uniqueness and traditional nuance in all of its spatial planning, you will see the typical building architecture with grid pattern in its settlement dan street.
Therefore it's not so exaggerated that Lalu Mulyadi, The Rector of National Technology Institute Malang call Cakranegara as the only fortress city in the world, and it is located in Indonesia.
Lalu did research on Cakranegara City for a year between 2006-2007 for his doctoral dissertation in University of Technologi Malaysia.
"The City of Cakranegara can be a prototype of spatial planning that still retain its physical and non-physical region," he said to TIMES Indonesia.
The uniqueness and traditionality which is shown cannot be seen anywhere else. The authenticity of it not only appear in the building's architecture, settlement and street pattern, but it's also evident in the social culture of the local people.
Remain until now, Lalu said that everything that exists in City of Cakranegara built with purpose and also full of meaning.
The City of Cakranegara built on 1692 by King Anak Agung from Bali. He built the region that known as Fortress City to prevent enemies from entering the area. Lalu said at that time there was conflict among regions so he needed to protect the region he led by building in the form of fortress.
The fortress built was not all-covered like the one in China. Lalu said that City of Cakranegara is more like Ch'ang-an, the town of China in the past. According to Wikipedia, Ch'ang-an at the era of Han Dynasty is located at northwest of now Xi'an, Shaanxi.
The City of Cakranegara was also mapped by Netherlands in 1986, long after the city built. After that, there was no more foreign visitor come to research it.
Lalu expects The City of Cakranegara could attract tourists from foreign country due to its status as a historical remain, but also for its uniqueness.
With the width approximately around 2x2 kilometres, the settlement and street are all arranged in the grid pattern. Each settlement is divided into blocks in which every block consisted 20 houses or buildings.
Whereas, the streets are divided into three types - big, medium and small. Lalu explained that the big street is 45 meter wide, the medium street is 36 meter wide and the small one is 27 meter and 9 meter wide.
From social culture aspect, the city is mostly inhabited by Hindu people until now. Some changes may occur now, but the composition of worshipping place cannot be changed. "When built a city or region, the must see where the holy places were, and also where was the unholy one," said Lalu.
Known as Sanga Mandala, this kind of concept is implemented on the field that will be arranged where the direction of the wind is the position of the gods, centred in the God of Shiva.
Quoted from Meganada (1990:58), spatial concent of Sanga Mandala also born from the nine manifestation of God to keep the balance of nature towards harmonious life called Dewata Nawa Sanga.
The culture of Hindu feels very strong in Cakranegara where the majority of people implemented their religious teachings in daily life. In Cakranegara there were also Moslems who inhabited certain blocks. In daily basis, the Moslems produced rambak (crackers from cow skin). With two different kind of religion among its people, life goes harmoniously though.
Lalu then said that this concept of areal arrangement is implemented in everyday life until now. "From the settlement, the size of the street, everything is retained. Though some changes occur with time, the substance is still remain," he added.
Seeing this, Lalu believed the concept of Cakranegara can be used as a prototype to arrange the settlement and street in the present time. Though it waa done in the past, the arrangement of Cakranegara region was very theoretical and scientific which become comfortable and well-arranged. (*)
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| Editor | : Ronny Wicaksono |
| Publisher | : Dhian Mega |
