De Javasche Bank (Netherlands) Switch to Bank Indonesia

When visiting to Banda Aceh City, then do not forget to go to Bank Indonesia located on Jalan Cut Meutia No.15, Kp. Baru, Baiturrahman, Banda Aceh City, Aceh Province. There is a lot of histories that we can learn in this magnificent large stone building. The architecture is an old European style with a cupola-style roof, a whitewashed building, and combined with many windows in the desaint. In the history, formerly BI building is a building De Javasche Bank which was built on December 2, 1918 by the Government of the Dutch East Indies.

The design of the De Javasche Bank building generally has the similarity of every branch of the bank built. Javasche Bank itself, was originally established in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, December 29, 1826 at the suggestion of the King of the Netherlands at that time, namely King Willem I. However, the Bank just operated as a bank in the real sense on January 24, 1828 through a Decree issued by the Commissioner General of Dutch East Indies No. 25. De Javasche Bank based in the Netherlands then built its first office in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), which was established in Semarang on March 1, 1829. Then the construction of his office followed by other areas such as Batavia, Surabaya, Bandung, Cirebon, Yogyakarta, Solo, Kediri, Malang, Surabaya, Manado, Padang, and Banda Aceh.

When the Dutch lost from Japan in 1942 and left Indonesia, Japan entered the occupation, including the Kuta Radja (Banda Aceh). De Javasche Bank during the Japanese government was closed and banned from operation on October 20, 1942. When Indonesia proclaimed its independence on August 17, 1945, De Javasche Bank was vacuumed and only then came the government's policy to make the bank as Bank Indonesia (BI) No. 24 of 1951. BI which as the Central Bank is regulated by Law no. 11 of 1953 on the Basic Law of Bank Indonesia. On March 2, 1964, the office of De Javasche Bank Banda Aceh was officially designated as the Office of Bank Indonesia, Banda Aceh.

The building that looks solid and magnificent can not guarantee its resilience to the tremendous earthquake and tsunami that struck the western province of Sumatara, Aceh, on December 26, 2004. Severe damage to buildings required government action to rebuild, in addition to the state infrastructure as well as guarding of historic buildings. During the renovation process, Bank Indonesia Banda Aceh was forced to be transferred temporarily to one of the Bank Indonesia offices located at Jalan Jenderal Sudirman no. 82 Banda Aceh, and then Bank Indonesia Banda Aceh was operating normally back in 2007 after completion of the earthquake-tsunami building renovation work.

In the process of renovation, the workmanship is very careful and maintain the architecture of the original building. This is to maintain the authenticity of buildings that store a lot of memories and stories of Indonesian history on the coast of Krueng Aceh (Aceh River)

(Aceh River)
Note: @lingkananggroe crew deliberately taking photos at night. The goal is to get the aesthetics of the camera-generated image.