Transformation of Kuthagara: Continuity and Change in Yogyakarta Heritage City
Danang Yulisaksono*, Ikaputra, Laretna Trisnantari Adishakti
Department of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Received: 10 January 2022; Accepted: 03 February 2023; Published: 21 February 2023
Abstract— Heritage Cities today take advantage of the status of UNESCO’s world heritage property and its strategies of conservation. Since these cities experience substantial urban transformations, especially as an object of urban tourism, changes are a substantial part. One of the focuses of the 2011 UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape recommendation is the management of change. However, the management of change in recent times needs to reassess how changes were handled in the past to be learned. Yogyakarta, one of the major heritage cities in Indonesia, has a similar phenomenon. The transformation of the heritage city of Yogyakarta is the case to be observed. The paper tried to reveal continuity and changes in the transformation of Yogyakarta’s Kuthagara which defines Yogyakarta Heritage City today, as the act of management of change. The methodology was urban morphological analysis and grounded theory analysis. The result reveals that although the Kuthagara has survived changes and maintained its cultural continuity, the dynamic changes from economic and cultural forces need to be managed further through the Historic Urban Landscape approach.
Keywords— change; continuity; transformation; management; urban morphology
I. Introduction
The positive image shown by heritage cities which are well-known tourist destinations such as Prague, Edinburgh, Florence, Fez, and Kyoto illustrates the enormous potential of heritage cities both economically and socio-culturally for a country. These cities encountered an urban culture that Thorns [1] classified as urban tourism, to name the two others as shopping and theme parks. The relationship between urban conservation and tourism is mutual, in which tourism has a positive impact on the economy and it would ensure the conservation of heritage areas as the main attraction [2]. Urban tourism had a significant effect on cities in South East Asia and especially in Indonesia since many cities were built in the 19th century under Dutch influence. The nostalgic theme for these cities to replicate the ambience of the 19th and early of the 20th era has raised the specific tourism market, especially for European descendants who find a connection with their ancestors, or Indonesian citizens who are willing to learn about historic urban cultures. Bandung, Malang, Semarang, and Jakarta played showcases for this kind of urban tourism. Yogyakarta has the same trend but with a different theme. Along with Surakarta, the two cities were the last cities built by the Mataram Kingdom, in the era before the Dutch governed the entire territory in early 1800. Although the Dutch had also a significant role to define urban life in these cities, the concept of the city originally came from Javanese culture itself. Fig. 1 shows the street view of areas around Braga, Bandung as the example of urban tourism destination in Indonesia .