The Transformation of Heritage Buildings as Tourist Attraction : Adaptive Re-use of Colonial Buildings at a Bandung Conservation Area

The strategic geographic position with extensive land and sea areas makes Indonesia rich in cultural heritages. Other than that, Dutch Colonial Government which ruled for a relatively long time in Indonesia also left some cultural heritages. Those cultural heritages are believed to have a potential to attract tourists, and one of the cultural heritages is the buildings. By using grounded research and taking some cases this paper will describe the potential of the buildings in one cultural heritage area in Bandung city that attracts many tourists. The buildings discussed are the residential buildings built during the Dutch colonial government era. After the independence, those buildings were acquisitioned by the Indonesian government and its army to be used as dwelling houses. The diversity of activities offered in this area is one of the supporting factors that attract the tourists, presented with artistic style as a reflection of the cultural diversity in the form of hotels, restaurants and factory outlets. The results of the research showed that uniqueness of architecture style and location potential have created specific recreation experiences as the attractiveness that change the area into one of the tourist destinations in Bandung city. Adaptive re-use concept which is implemented to the buildings is believed optimizing the built-in area more effectively than building new buildings. The research questions addressed in this study are: Does the adaptive re-use concept have impact to the buildings and surroundings?;What kind of building transformation is the right one as an effort to adapt to the new function? Adaptive re-use is expected to be one of the conservation efforts to revive buildings and the conserved area by maintaining the existing built environment in the city. Keywords—building transformation, adaptive re-use, conservation area