Andra Matin: The Happening
Prihal: arsitektur andramatin offers a comprehensive overview of Indonesian luminary architect Andra Matin’s oeuvre, and an intimate view of his studio culture
‘If I have one regret, it’s not documenting my work diligently enough,’ says architect Andra Matin wistfully. We’re walking down a tunnel constructed with wood and woven rattan; daylight filters in, casting a golden hue to the space. Matin’s hand caresses the wall, drawn on which was a timeline of his eponymous studio’s oeuvre.
The timeline comprises, all told, some 800 architectural projects, both built and unbuilt, presented in chronological order. Done between 1998 and 2019, most of these projects were marked by a project name and an image. But some early works were marked without. ‘Let this exhibition shows the younger generation how important it is to properly document your work, so you can look back and measure your progress and others can learn from your process,’ Matin adds.
The tunnel was the prologue of Prihal: arsitektur andramatin, Matin’s solo exhibition. It stretched for 60 metres, disrupting the symmetry of the National Gallery of Indonesia’s Dutch Indies building from 28 November to 11 December. It was the first solo exhibition by a local architect to be held in the illustrious venue. And it was a momentous event celebrated by Indonesia’s architecture community.
The architect, clad in an off-white linen robe designed by his wife, interior designer Dite Matin, opened the exhibition by asking the guests to sing the national anthem with him. The VIP night’s guides, sporting similar linen robes, were themselves celebrated architects, amongst them Yori Antar, Ary Indra and Heru Prasetyo. ‘We volunteered for Mas Aang,’ quipped Indra, referring to Matin’s nickname.
‘Prihal’ translates to ‘happening’ or ‘the state of’ in Indonesian. The exhibition was curated by young architects Danny Wicaksono and Artiandi Akbar and organised by andramatin studio in collaboration with graphic design studios Leboye and Nusae, videographer Davy Linggar and lighting designer Hadi Komara.
The ‘prologue’ tunnel, realised in collaboration with eco-weaving company BYO Living, was designed to be multisensorial, and inspire an unhurried journey. The air smelled faintly of wood. The rattan screen offered a degree of visual permeability and a sense of being part of the outdoors. At the end of the tunnel, a reflecting pond and a wall of mirrored surface created a distorted illusion of infinity.
‘I think one of the most exciting things about practising architecture in Indonesia is the climate. It’s relatively unchanging and very forgiving, so you can blur the indoor and outdoor and essentially live with nature however you want,’ says Matin. The prologue was an expression of this.
The main part of the exhibition unfolded in multiple parts. Matin’s built projects in Jakarta and other cities were showcased in an airy, all-white gallery while his unbuilt projects were displayed in a pitch-black room without titles or descriptions. The models were uniformly scaled to showcase his range, from city-scale masterplans to a humble, three-room student residence, his second smallest project (the smallest one was a cat house, which had been too minuscule to include as a model).
Matin is known for his local and minimal material palette: he strives to use as few materials as possible in a project to reduce maintenance and carbon footprint. The few locally crafted materials that comprise part of this palette are the result of rigorous rounds of exploration, and were on display in the On Materiality room. Among the exhibits were the natural woven rattan panels used for his award-winning Venice Biennale installation Elevation, also created in collaboration with BYO Living. An irresistibly Instagrammable mirrored infinity room showcasing Matin’s bespoke breeze blocks and a Lego workshop area to keep the young and the playful entertained capped off the journey in the gallery’s main building.
Perhaps providing the most insight into Matin’s studio culture was the On The Everyday part of the exhibition. Hosted in a separate building, this showcased a near-exact layout of Matin’s studio in the southern Jakarta neighbourhood of Bintaro, complete with functional workstations and desktop units as well as working project files that visitors could view and explore. A video of the studio’s routine, which started with a communal breakfast at Matin’s home (a stone’s throw from his studio) played in the background.
‘Some of us are familiar with some of Mas Aang’s works, but there are so many more that the public had never seen before,” says Wicaksono. ‘Prihal aims to broaden the discussion and impart a better understanding of architecture and architectural works, in the hope of fostering a sustainable architecture ecosystem in Indonesia. Hopefully we can have more architectural exhibitions like this, at this scale, in the future.’
Prihal’s short run at The National Gallery of Indonesia will be followed up by an exhibition focusing on Matin’s unbuilt projects in April at TOTO Gallery Indonesia.
Text by Asih Jenie
Images by Mario Wibowo Photography, courtesy of BYO Living, unless otherwise stated
