The Story of Adaptive Reuse in Jakarta’s Old Building Under the ‘Instagrammable’ Era

Abstract

Cities are manifestations that record every development and change in society that occurred very rapidly. Even though it keeps changing time by time, it often leaves a corner or area that still kept memories from the past. Sometimes the preservation of old buildings faces several issues that turn them into empty buildings in the middle of the cityscape due to the maintenance cost. Lately, these buildings are seen as potential spaces by the investors to be utilized. This remodeling process is commonly known as adaptive reuse: to revive old buildings by alternating space programs and display features to be a bit different from the original or the previous one. The investors restore the buildings' form and give new features adapted from today's city lifestyle. This process also allows the designers or the owners to curate several new visual looks or styles to the buildings inspired by social media, especially Instagram. Therefore, these buildings would become the new spot in the cities because of their instagrammable looks, a term that represents an attractive or photogenic scene to being posted on Instagram. This paper aims to highlight the adaptive reuse practice in Jakarta and determine how visual trends that bloomed on social media influence investors while redesigning old buildings into restaurants or café. Through the observation method, it can be inferred that the current practices of adaptive reuse in Jakarta are done under the spirit of preservation and driven by economic motives. The owners would remodel their building assets into new looks to invite more crowds, which could earn as much money as possible; one of the approaches is making instagrammable spots.