About Shophouse

This article continues the previous article entitled "About City" and was inspired by Abidin Kusno's work in his book, The New Age of the Modernist Generation: An Architectural Note. This article is intended to increase students' interest, especially my colleagues, in the architectural richness around them and the importance of studying it to enrich design and historical understanding.

Link to Article

One form of change in the city is the Rumah Toko (shophouse), which is one of the house typologies of Chinese people who work as traders. These shophouses are found in many coastal cities in Indonesia, some of which are Semarang, Jakarta, Surabaya, and other coastal areas that are trading places or have large ports.

The early forms and origins of Chinese housing or shophouses are unknown. It usually has 2 to 3 floors; the first is for shops and living, while the second is for living and storage. The shape extends to the back and is separated by a "sky well" in the center.

Slowly the shape that characterizes the shophouse is disappearing. Many shophouses were turned into full-fledged residential houses or had other functions added. Another change is from the form of selling served by shopkeepers to not needing it anymore (self-service form).

Changes in form also have consequences on changes in spatial needs and arrangements. Because the need for increased circulation paths due to the self-service type may also make the building space no longer a place to live.

In terms of social and politics in Indonesia, especially during the new order period, the change of shophouses to be more modern, according to Tiong Hui Koan, was not only due to modernization and development but also due to the country's cultural politics. Chinese signs began to be removed, and shophouse owners in shantytowns such as Glodok covered the entire face of the building with billboards.

This became a symbolic form of closure of the history of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, giving birth to shophouses with glass, minimalism, and modern style. These shophouses are also marketed as shops or offices with no residential houses like their original form. The shophouse, initially a typology of a compact community building where it could be used as a residence and a place for economic activities, gradually lost its original form. It became reduced to a temporary economic place.