The Palembang Mayoral Office, also known as Kantor Ledeng, is an office building in

Palembang Palembang (, Palembang: ''Pelémbang'', Mandarin: 巨港 (Jùgǎng), Hokkien: 舊港 (Kū-káng), Jawi: ) is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River in the ea ...

South Sumatra South Sumatra () is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, located in the southeast of the island of Sumatra. The capital and largest city of the province is the city of Palembang. The province borders the provinces of Jambi to the north ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, which is used as the seat of the municipal government of the city. It was built as a water tower with an office for the colonial government on the lower floors by the Dutch, and was later also used by Japanese authorities during the Japanese occupation of the city.

History

The building was constructed between 1928 and 1931, with S. Snuijf as the architect. The building served a dual function as both a water tower and the city hall, with the building being occupied by the colonial government of ''gemeente'' Palembang after its completion. Following the

Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies campaign of 1941–1942 was the conquest of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) by forces of the Empire of Japan in the early days of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Allied forces attempted unsuccessfully t ...

, the building became the seat of the Japanese administrator of Palembang Residency. After the

proclamation of Indonesian independence The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence (, or simply ''Proklamasi'') was read at 10:00 Tokyo Standard Time on Friday 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of the Indonesian Nati ...

in August 1945, large crowds led by nationalists such as

Adnan Kapau Gani Major general TNI ( Tit.) Dr. Adnan Kapau Gani or commonly abbreviated as A.K. Gani (16 September 1905 – 23 December 1968) was an Indonesian doctor, politician, actor and military figure. He served as Deputy Prime Minister in the Cabinet o ...

took over the building from the Japanese administrators, flying the Indonesian flag on 25 August. After the end of the

Indonesian National Revolution The Indonesian National Revolution (), also known as the Indonesian War of Independence (, ), was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between the Republic of Indonesia and the Dutch Empire and an internal social revolution during A ...

, the building was used by the municipal government as the city hall until 1956, and since 1963 it was used as the mayor's office. It is currently designated as a Cultural Property of Indonesia, and designated as a tourist destination by the city's tourism department.

Building

The water tower was built with the intent of providing fresh water especially to the Dutch population of Palembang, which prior to the building's construction relied on water taken directly from the Musi River. Initially, the 35-meter white building had a floor space of 250 square meters, and the water tank had a carrying capacity of 1,200 cubic meters. The building's site was chosen to be next to two small tributaries of the Musi: the Sekanak and Kapuran rivers, although the Kapuran no longer exists today. It was constructed at a cost of reportedly one ton of gold, following the ''

De Stijl De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...

'' style of architecture commonly found in other colonial government buildings in Indonesia, resulting in a cubical building shape and a flat rooftop. The

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

of the building featured six cement pillars, with

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

walls and three doors. The building underwent renovations to expand the office space in 1970. As of 2021, three floors of the building are still in use - with the vice-mayor and municipal secretary working in the second floor and the mayor in the third floor. The old water tower's plumbing still exists in the modern building and is protected as a cultural property, starting from the building's fourth floor. A three-story extension building behind the main water tower building houses several departments of the municipal government.

References

{{reflist Palembang Buildings and structures in South Sumatra Dutch colonial architecture in Indonesia 1930 establishments in the Dutch East Indies Cultural Properties of Indonesia in South Sumatra City and town halls in Indonesia Water towers