Souw Beng Kong’s Tomb: Transformation of a Green Chinese Cemetery Area to a Present Dense Area

Abstract

In 1644, Souw Beng Kong lay on his final rest, in a burial site on the middle of a coconut plantation site in Mangga Dua. A portrait of a green cemetery area in the heart of Batavia, which cannot be found anymore. Despite the preservation act, Souw Beng Kong’s tomb is now located in a very narrow space amid the overcrowded area. This paper seeks to explore the Souw Beng Kong’s Tomb historical value, which categorized as one of Jakarta’s urban heritage, in an aim to generate more understanding of a place, mainly the green cemetery site on the past and to trace the change of place, with a main question on how was the transformation of place occurred on the site of Souw Beng Kong’s Tomb? How the site was treated on each era (colonial and post-colonial)? What was the socio-political occurrence that triggers the contrasting change of the place? In processing data, beside using the content analysis method, the interpretation will be processed using Fumihiko Maki (2018) approach on reading the urban morphological changes that includes observation on morphological and microtopography, community culture, and site-specific basic principles.