Indies Empire style (Dutch: Indisch Rijksstijl) is an architectural style that flourished in the colonial Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) between the middle of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century.[1] The style is an imitation of the neoclassical Empire Style which was popular in mid-19th-century France. Conformed to the tropical setting of Indonesia, the style became known in the Dutch East Indies as the Indies Empire style.
The development of the Indies Empire style is strongly related to the Indies culture, a society of mixed descendants which developed in the Dutch East Indies.[1] Indies people associated themselves with high status and expressed themselves by building opulent country houses usually associated with European aristocrats.[2][3] Many of these country houses appeared in the periphery of Batavia around the middle of the 17th-century, the architectural style of which reached its peak when it merged completely with the Javanese local architecture, a new style known as the Old Indies style.
With the arrival of Herman Willem Daendels in the early 19th-century, the development of the architectural style of these country houses took a different course. Daendels was a former colonel-general of Louis Bonaparte in France. At that time, a neoclassical architectural movement named Empire Style was popular in France. When Daendels was made the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, he made Empire Style popular in the Dutch East Indies. Conformed to the tropical architecture of Indonesia, the style became known as the Indies Empire Style.[4]
By the end of the 19th-century, clubhouses and playhouses were built in big cities of the Indies such as Batavia, Semarang, and Surabaya; most were built following the Indies Empire style trend.[5] City development at the end of the 19th-century also influenced the form of the Indies Empire style. The lack of available space in city centers required modifications of typical Indies Empire-style houses. Stone columns were replaced with wooden or narrow iron columns, usually imported from the Netherlands.[6] Also changing was the addition of corrugated steel shades supported by cast iron consoles to protect the windows and the front porch from rainwater and sun.[6] Examples of Indies Empire style houses from this later period are the Jakarta Textile Museum and some houses in Jalan Bubutan, Surabaya.
In the 19th century, the Indies Empire style is considered a representative of the "uptown" of Batavia, the area south of the "downtown" Kota Tua. Indies Empire Style is described as a trend in which houses were built in "...one storey with large gardens, with front and back galleries and high and wide halls; houses with hanging roofs where shade, air, and coolness were the dominant privileges...", compared with the earlier Dutch style houses in Kota Tua, described as houses with "...high dark rooms with the beamed ceilings, the white painted walls, and the red tiled floors."[7]
Indies Empire style flourished until the early 20th century, when the style was met with criticism. Indies Empire style in Indonesia was not the work of a professional architect, but the design of a building supervisor (opzichter). Modern academics such as architects Berlage and Moojen considered the Indies Empire style buildings to be low in quality;[8] which led to a renaissance of architectural style which sought a new unique identity specially attributed to the culture of Dutch Indies. Later a new style emerged, known as the New Indies Style, a modern movement and a branch of Dutch Rationalism which in the end replaced the Indies Empire style.