The Role of GeMaSPeKoLa in Supporting The Preservation of Semarang Old Town

Abstract

Semarang is one of capital cities in Central Java province, Indonesia which has three main aspects of sustainable urban development. Semarang city is very famous among other cities due to the historical value. There are some historical buildings just like “Lawang Sewu”, “Blenduk Church”, “Old Post Office”, “Cathedral Church”, etc and historical districts like “Old City”, “China Town”, “Johar Traditional Market” and “Sekayu kampoong” existed in Semarang city which are good to be visited by tourists. The architectural style of the historical buildings and areas are mostly coloured and designed by the Dutch. Furthermore, the history of Semarang city is formed through a long and unique history. Semarang city was colonized by the Dutch 400 years. This could be characterized by a variety of historical relics and ancient buildings existed right now in the city. Remembering the role of Semarang historical story especially for young generation, therefore, it seems to be needed a comprehensive conceptual thinking to polish that pearls to be more shinny. Local government of Semarang City has an effort to preserve all of the historic assets to sustain the local value af the city. Local government has plan to register these historic assets to be one of World Class Heritage. By doing so, it is expected that the history of Semarang City would not easily diminish. To vizualize that, Regional conservation regulation is stipulated by local government in order to protect the historical buildings and districts during the process to become one of World Heritages. Local Government likewise invite local people to participate in the preservation activities. Local people is encouraged to perform community forum that especially concern about preservation. By providing technical assistances, local government tried to increase the knowledge and conciousness of local people towards preservation activities. But the problems then arrised was that some historical buildings and areas have changed already. There were some local people changed the function of old building especially in Old Town without concerning the preservation. They changed the façade instead of keeping the old façade of old building. This has broken the preservation regulation that already set by the government. Based on the above matter, this research is tried to manage one preservation of the pearls which is Old Town area through the development of humanistic conservation concept, namely “GeMaSPeKoLa”. By using descriptive method, researcher would like to describe in detail the role of ”GeMaSPeKola“ as social community that concern towards the Old Town Preservation. This kind of social forum will then lead to strengthen local people to participate in the preservation activities and bring Old Town to be World Heritage. The Old Town is actually unique due to the historical story and kept a lot of heritage value. As one of the most famous tourist attraction in Central Java, a lot of tourists are coming and visiting Old Town. There are many factors forces local people to make any changes in their living. Therefore, this method is fit to explain all the phenomena related to that matter including social cohesion. This research is basically supported by primary and secondary data. Observation and indepth interview are executed to explore about the role of “GeMaSPeKoLa” in reducing the occurred problems regarding Old Town Preservation. The expected outcome of this research would be strategy to optimize the role of “GeMaSPeKola” in the preservation activities particularly to support Old Town to become World Heritage.