There are many architectural phenomena that give rise to hybridity in the built environment. Contrasting and strange hybrids are a result of cross-contamination in architectural styles between the East and the West; the temperate and the tropical; the old and the new.

I was interested in Bandung mainly because of its rich history of such a phenomenon. It became known, in the 1930s as an architectural laboratory, owed to the many Dutch architects who experimented with what was considered exploratory architectural projects.

The capital of Indonesia’s West Java Province was dubbed as the Paris of Java appropriated by the Dutch colonials who gave rise to the Tropical Dutch Colonial architectural style, which is a combination of modern design with classical and vernacular tropes from both Europe and Asia. The city of Bandung is approximately 150km from Jakarta and is situated in a river basin, surrounded by topographical peaks.

There were plans to move the capital of the Dutch East Indies, Batavia - now Jakarta - to Bandung where the hills supposedly provided natural defence for the city, and has a cooler climate because of its elevation. Bandung is the 2nd largest metropolitan area in Indonesia only accessible by land and air, with an urban populace of approximately 3.1 million people, of which majority are Muslim.

The significance of Bandung in the constellation of architectural modernisation of Indonesia through colonialism and onward into independence is that, within this urban environment, a series of influential characters along with their oeuvres emerged. It therefore, brought forth different architectural traits crucial to the evolution of contemporary architecture in Bandung and the region.