Hyper‐planning Jakarta: The Great Garuda and planning the global spectacle

Abstract

After a major flood in Jakarta in 2007, the government of Indonesia partnered with a consortium of Dutch engineers and designers to produce a solution. In 2013, this consortium proposed a plan for the Great Garuda, a megaproject that combined a deep seawall and private real estate, both in an archipelago of reclaimed islands that would be shaped like the mythical garuda eagle, Indonesia's national symbol. Despite a range of infeasibilities and opposition, the Great Garuda became the most prominent vision for the city's future. This article argues that the promotion of the Great Garuda was a process of 'hyper-planning', which projected the city as a national triumph and a global spectacle. The plan served the political objective of creating the mere possibility of a 'new Jakarta' apart from the perceived chaos of the current capital. Further, the plan functioned as a performative object through its iconic imagery and its circulations. The process of hyper-planning simultaneously projected a future of urban success, but also displaced the contingencies of the future to the private sector, beyond the purview of the state. the water, its wings stretching across the breadth of the bay and its head protruding into the sea. Finally, the seawall would be constructed by private real estate developers, and the real estate sales, it was planned, would pay for the seawall infrastructure.

Extending Urban Development on Water: Jakarta Case Study

“…This has not yet been considered by most urban planners. Wade (2019) criticizes Indonesian planners which keep supporting reclamation megaprojects and underestimate other possibilities to address the sinking of Jakarta.…”

“…Moreover, the seawall would provide a new icon for Jakarta, as the overall design of the project would be shaped like the Garuda, a mythical eagle of Indonesia's national symbol. The project is relatively massive as it would involve development of 32 kilometres, 1250 hectares land reclamation, and a 7500 hectares water retention basin (Van Dijk, 2016, Octavianti andCharles, 2018;Wade, 2019). Table 2 shows detailed components of the NCICD project.…”

“…The project attracts skepticism of many scholars in respect of financing, such as Van Dijk (2016), and even more from policy and political economy perspectives, such as Octavianti and Charles (2018) who relate it to the idea of ‘disaster capitalism’ and Matt Wade’s (2019) notion of‘hyper-planning’ process of NCIDC. It is of interest that the project itself would cost about USD 50 billion, though the Indonesian government was reluctant to spend this money (Dijk, 2016).…”

Thinking beyond success and failure: Dutch water expertise and friction in postcolonial Jakarta

“…Faced with the Indonesian government’s apparent unwillingness to commit funding, consultants integrated the use of private–public partnerships into the master plan during the design process, while continuing to encourage the government to commit financially. The reliance on private investment as a “financial fix” (Wade, 2019: 165) had a significant bearing on the master plan; land reclamation became the primary financing mechanism and the centerpiece of the master plan in the form of 1250 ha of reclaimed land in the shape of the Garuda . The design has been credited to Dutch architect Gijs van den Boomen, KuiperCampagnons who, while playing on an iPad in a taxi, noticed that the shape of Jakarta Bay resembled a bird (personal communication, 2015).…”

“…Many media outlets, which in the absence of sufficient socialization became a primary source of information about the GGSW project, implicitly and explicitly conflated the two. Subsequently, property developers were able to use the project to advance their agendas (see Wade, 2019). For example, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill LLP (SOM), a firm hired by Indonesian property developer Agung Podomoro Land to develop the master plan for Pluit City claims on its website:SOM’s master plan for two new islands on 450 hectares of reclaimed land off the north coast of Jakarta, Indonesia, creates the first phase of a unique “archipelago” city district to be built in the historic Jakarta Bay.…”