Learning From Leuit: The Remains of Sundanese Vernacular Architecture’s Rice Barn

Kemas Ridwan Kurniawan, Rizki Dwika Aprilian

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

As a diverse country with hundreds of ethnic groups, Indonesia has a rich treasure of hereditary traditions and cultures, including its architecture. Unfortunately, the existence of vernacular architecture today is threatened with severe problems. One of these threats is the existence of urbanization which encourages land clearing everywhere to be turned into modern settlements or housing, even in the outskirts and outside of the core city or capital city. In addition to the high demand for housing, the modernization of innovative technology in housing manufacturing threatens the existence of vernacular architecture today. Society is more interested in practical buildings in materials and construction, much different from vernacular architecture, whose raw materials must be conveyed directly from nature in limited supply. As a result, this shift also decreased public awareness of vernacular buildings. Several traditional Sundanese villages still retain their vernacular architecture not far from the heart of Jakarta, forty kilometers to the southeast. One of them is Cipondok Village in Cibodas, Jonggol, Bogor Regency. Amid the increasingly invasive modern housing construction in rural areas, those two settlements still own several vernacular Sundanese houses. Both villages also still maintained the traditional rice barn called leuit. Leuit is an essential feature in a Sundanese village typology that contains philosophy. Not only contain functional values as a rice barn, but the existence of leuit also appears as a symbol of the agrarian identity of its people. The existence of leuit as a communal rice barn also shows the independence of the vernacular community in managing their food, especially in times of crisis such as famine, natural disasters, and even pandemics. This paper was written using the Vernadoc (Vernacular Documentation), a method in vernacular architecture that aims to study the community’s building traditions. This method includes literature studies, site visits, documentation, measurement, and re-drawing of the Sundanese Leuit. Through this paper, the author would like to invite the readers to re-learn the resistance of the Sundanese leuit that remains in Jakarta’s outskirts, starting from the value of local wisdom, environmental aspects or ecology, community resilience, and sustainability. The author also aims to record and disseminate the knowledge of Sundanese’ local genius in architecture, one of the largest tribes in Indonesia with almost 40 million people—but currently threatened by urbanization and modernization. Through a comprehensive study of these remaining leuit in Jakarta’s outskirt, it could be an action to preserve Sundanese vernacular architecture. Thus, the building and construction knowledge owned by the local community can be conserved and inherited throughout the ages.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPotency of the Vernacular Settlements
Subtitle of host publicationRecent Scholarships in Vernacular Studies
PublisherTaylor and Francis Ltd.
Pages15-26
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781040132883
ISBN (Print)9781032484266
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2024

Keywords

  • Ecology
  • Leuit
  • Resilience
  • Rice barn
  • Sundanese architecture

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