WARNING!!

I met this lovely lady, Ellise, in Sanur today. I interviewed her for a good 15 minutes for my presentation next week. This is one of my favorite part of being an architect student, you can pick any random person, especially the tourists in the street and ask them about traditional culture. Ellise has been live in Bali since she was 19 years old. She left Holland and just fell in love with Bali immediately. 

My interview went very well. She’s concern with the urban development nowadays and how pity it is, that the local resident has changed the traditional buildings into modern architecture. Bali is no longer has its identity, she said.

“19 years ago, Bali was something else, the buildings, the cultures, the people, they were actually the reasons why i came. But what i see now is just glass everywhere, flat roof, flat black doors.. just like any other places.”

And i was embarrassed. Does it mean that we failed as an architect? We build this, we build that, as long as it looks similar with what Frank Wright had, as long as it looks clean like Hadid did, as long as it looks modern like how Libeskind reflected. We throw away those traditional values for what?

It’s actually the traditional value that matters. It’s more sustainable, has a very high aesthetic view, and the most important part, it’s always green. Traditional is not always old-fashioned. It’s our identity that matters. It’s people who appreciate their own cultures who will have a place in the world. As an architect, we have to hold on local cultures, make proper design, not just putting traditional ornaments into walls, but really understand how to apply traditional building in modern life.