The Overview

“A world complete” - that’s how Christopher Koch described Hotel Indonesia in his novel The Year of Living Dangerously. Initially a symbol of the country’s push towards modernization, this landmark hotel later became a bulwark amid political turmoil - all the more set apart by its streamlined international design and spacious grounds. For years, it was where the foreign press corps preferred to stay, watching protests from their balconies by day, and by night, talking shop in the ground-floor Wayang Bar, a scene immortalized in Koch’s tale (and later, Peter Weir’s film adaptation). But by the 1990’s, the government-run hotel had gone into decline, eclipsed by luxury competitors and seemed headed for demolition.
 
It’s now reborn after a four-year renovation (the cost of which the owners refuse to reveal). As for its new look - renamed Hotel Indonesia Kempinski - don’t expect a faithful restoration, however. While the façade has been left intact, previous renovations emptied the hotel of its mid-century furniture. Gone, too, was the journalists’ beloved hangout. “I would have loved to been able to do something with [the Wayang Bar],” says Ian Carr, the principal at design firm Hirsch Bedner Associates, which was hired to create the hotel’s interiors. Carr and his team scoured archival material to get an idea of what the hotel looked like in its 1960’s heyday, though they were also keen to update it. “It’s not a museum piece, it has to reflect the new state of the country,” says Carr.
 
The result is a flashier Hotel Indonesia: in the lobby, marbled floors and floor-to-ceiling windows, while the 289 guest rooms are kitted out in purple and grey, and boast all the amenities now expected of a luxury stay: 42-inch TV’s, rain shower, high-speed Internet connection. Still, the designers tried to keep the original spirit alive by importing 1960’s Knoll chairs from the United States and showcasing the hotel’s impressive collection of Indonesian art.
 
Not everyone, though, is happy, especially when it comes to the adjoining development: an apartment building, office tower and 250,000-square-meter mall that all but dwarf the hotel. “With the new buildings, Hotel Indonesia now looks like a hut,” says Adolf Heuken, a Dutch historian who’s made Jakarta his home for the past five decades. Budding foreign correspondents, at least, can toast the changes at the hotel’s new Ramayana Pavilion & Bar.

Address:
1 Jalan MH Thamrin
Jakarta, Indonesia

Telephone: +62 21 2358 3800

Website: http://www.kempinski-jakarta.com