Villa Isola
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| Villa Isola | |
 Frontal view |
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  Shown within Java Topography
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| Building information | |
|---|---|
| Town | Bandung |
| Country | Indonesia |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| Architect | C.P. Wolff Schoemaker |
| Client | Dominique William Berretty |
| Construction start date | October 1932 |
| Completion date | March 1933 |
| Cost | 500,000 guilders |
| Style | Art-deco |
Villa Isola (now Bumi Siliwangi) is an art-deco building in the northern part of Bandung, the capital of West Java province of Indonesia. Overlooking the valley with the view of the city, Villa Isola was built in 1932 by the Dutch architect Wolff Schoemaker for the Dutch media tycoon Dominique William Berretty, the founder of the Aneta press-agency in the Dutch East Indies. The original purpose of the building was for Berretty's private house, but then it was transformed into a hotel after his death and now it serves as the headmastership office of the University of Education Indonesia.
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[edit] Construction
Villa Isola was constructed within six months (October 1932 — March 1933), which was quite fast at that time.[1] The foundation was built by steel and concrete was used to fill the skeleton and the floors between iron bars. Villa Isola complex consists of the building itself and two large gardens and it covered about 120,000 m² area.[1]
The total cost to build the whole complex was about 500,000 guilders, despite the fact that Dominique Berrety was almost went bankrupt.[2] The building was celebrated during the opening ceremony in December 1933. Berretty invited several journalists and friends to show his new villa.[3] The guests were impressed by the meticulous details of the decoration. The rooms were filled with warm furniture, Venetian crowns and paintings of famous Indies and western painters. There were a reception room, a dining room, a wide billiards room, a study room, sleeping rooms, family room with a balcony, open terraces at both west-east sides, and a cozy bar equipped with a movie projector. A placard with "M’ISOLO E VIVO" (I isolate myself and live) sign is adorned on the wall above the reception room.
Berretty lived there for a few months before he died during the plane crash in Syria during the DC-2 Uiver Batavia—Amsterdam flight in December 1934. The building is still standing without any major changes, except for its usage and its surrounding environment. Villa Isola was transformed first into a hotel. During the Japanese occupation in Indonesia, the building was used as the Japanese army's headquarter for Bandung in 1942. After the Indonesian independence, Villa Isola was renovated with one more floor added on top of the roof and the name was changed into "Bumi Siliwangi". On October 1954, the then Indonesia minister of education Mohammad Yamin designated the building and its surrounding complex for the new pedagogical institute in Bandung. The building still serves now as the headmastership office of the University of Education Indonesia (Indonesian: Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia) and the surrounding complex is the campus of the university.
[edit] Architecture
Wolff Schoemaker, the architect, designed Villa Isola with the influence of indigenous Javanese philosophy. He used the imaginary north—south axis, where the building faces Mount Tangkuban Perahu to the north and the city of Bandung to the south.[4] Schoemaker was a firm follower of the art-deco style, mixed with local ornaments. There are many circular shapes decorated the whole complex, the design of which reminds people with the shape of Candi in the east of Java. Circle is the main theme of the complex, both inside and outside the villa, including the gardens.
The main entrance is located at the middle of the north facade shaded by a concrete-made canopy arch supported only by one pillar. Interior of the first floor consists of a lobby with a twisted staircase to the second floor, and a family room. A large window in a half-circled curve shape decorates the family room completed with an open balcony and steel bars, where the view of Bandung city can be observed especially at night. The family room is also equipped with a circular shape of toilet.
On the second floor, a master bedroom is located at the middle of the building and is facing to the south, connected by two corridors to the west and to the east open terraces. Besides as connecting halls to the terraces, the west and east corridor axes function as "pipelines" to regulate air in the room, isolating the thermal condition of the tropical climate. Hence, the bedroom has a room temperature during the hot sunny days.
The third floor consists of guest rooms and an entertainment room (a bar). Due to difference in height between the north and the south sides, the south side has an extra floor. The fourth floor in the south was mainly used for service area. Integrating service area inside a house was new at that time, because all of the colonial residential houses always separated service rooms with the main house.
[edit] Gardens
Two gardens with different altitude decorated the complex. The north garden, the higher, was a European style garden with a rectangular pond and a statue stood in the middle. Orchard flowers dominated the garden and five black swans were specially imported to garnish the pond. A road divided the garden symmetrically to allow cars pass through from and to the garage. A half-circled staircase attached to the main building enhanced the symmetrical design of the garden.
The size of the south garden was enormous and it occupied most of the complex. Circular ornaments filled the south garden, starting from the building by another half-circled staircase. There are also similar staircases in the west and the east sides of the building. The garden was divided into circular areas where the building was positioned as the center of the circles, which had made the impression that the building was an integral part of the garden.
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Monumentaal Landhuis", Java Bode, 14 March 1933. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
- ^ Short Biography of D.W. Berretty. Hans Dokkum and D.W. Berretty. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
- ^ "Inwijding villa "Isola"", Preanger Bode, 18 December 1933. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
- ^ W. Wibisono. "Villa Isola, Monumen dalam Arsitektur (Villa Isola, Monument in Architecture)", Kompas, 28 March 2004. (Indonesian)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Villa Isola - Visual Database of Modern Dutch Architecture in Indonesia - Bandung from National University of Singapore.
- (Dutch) Villa Isola at VisualText.nl
