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

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

South Sumatra South Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Selatan) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southeast of the island of Sumatra, The province spans and had a population of 8,467,432 at the 2020 Census. The capital of the province is Palembang. The pro ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, 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 from the Empire of Japan in the early days of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Forces from the Allies attempted ...

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

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

in August 1945, large crowds led by nationalists such as

Adnan Kapau Gani Adnan Kapau Gani (16 September 1905 – 23 December 1968), often abbreviated as A. K. Gani, was an Indonesian politician. Born in West Sumatra, he spent much of his youth in Java, where he studied medicine and became involved with the nasc ...

took over the building from the Japanese administrators, flying the

Indonesian flag The Flag of Indonesia is a simple bicolor with two horizontal bands, red (top) and white (bottom) with an overall ratio of 2:3. It was introduced and hoisted in public during the proclamation of independence on 17 August 1945 at 56 Proklamasi ...

on 25 August. After the end of the

Indonesian National Revolution The Indonesian National Revolution, or 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 Aftermath of WWII, postw ...

, 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'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...

'' 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 () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

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 predomi ...

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