Djohar market, or Pasar Johar as it is commonly referred to, is the last and largest of the three market buildings Karsten designed in Semarang. It was built on the site where street vendors in the early 19th century started selling textiles and local produce. The name of the market refers to its humble and site-specific origin: the johar (cassia fistula) or golden rain tree that grew locally. The trees not only provided shelter for vendors from sun and rain but also a potent treatment for malaria.
Karsten’s new building was directly related to the national government’s effort to counter the widespread unhealthy living and working conditions on the archipelago. Because of their obvious substandard condition, upgrading sewage systems, garbage collection, slaughterhouses and markets were very high on most local administrators’ agenda.
The situation in Semarang in the early 20th century was no different; as one of the unhealthiest cities in the colony, its administrators became national leaders and trend setters in their attempts to improve these conditions. The slaughterhouse and the three market buildings Karsten designed should therefore be directly linked to the administrators’ policy to improve the numerous private and public local markets.
To replace the rickety buildings that constituted Johar market and ensure the new building would meet the times’ reinforced health and safety standards, Karsten once more adopted the construction and design concept he had honed during his work on his earlier market buildings. The construction, patented in the USA in 1905, consisted of reinforced concrete floors supported by octagonal, so called ‘mushroom’, columns. Because this structure didn’t require load-bearing inner and outer walls and floor plans were almost uninterrupted, they offered maximum flexibility when it came to arranging interiors.
To design the ‘cleanest’ building possible, Karsten exploited the multifunctional capacities of the structural elements of the construction to their maximum; for example, integrating electric power and rainwater channels in the columns. He also raised the centre of the roof to create natural ventilation, indirect light and focal points for orientation inside the building and to mark the building’s four main entrances.
Karsten’s design for Semarang’s largest market was an emblem of the period’s modern functional architecture designed with a clear appreciation of its users’ needs.
Because of this, it is even more distressing that the building has been placed under serious threat twice since the early 21st century. The first time was in 2006, when an investor presented plans to incorporate the market into a new trade centre: luckily, the project was abandoned after fierce protests.The second time, in 2015, the building was less lucky, when fire completely gutted the building. After some deliberation, it was decided to reconstruct Pasar Johar. Thus, what you see today is not the original but a reconstruction.
To visit the fifth object in this tour, Handelsvereeniging Semarang (LATLON: -6.968852, 110.425472), cross Jalan KH Agus Salim and enter Jalan Alun-alun Timur. Turn right when you reach Jalan Pemuda. Pass Semarang’s Main Post Office on your right – another building from the colonial period – and pause a minute on the bridge over the Semarang River. The building on the right-hand side corner after the bridge is the building you are looking for. Before you get closer to the building, notice how the building marks the main entrance to Semarang’s historic European business district.
