Notes on the Geography of Indonesia: Bandung: Photo 25

Under the traditional roof, astonishingly, there are non-traditional supports of wood formed into parabolic arches. The architect was H. MacLaine Pont. He was often engaged in polemical battles with Schoemaker. Maclane believed that modern architects could adopt traditional styles, while Schoemaker maintained that "Java does not have an architecture as we understand the term" (p. 60). Schoemaker appears to have believed that India, however, particularly in its Hindu temple forms, did possess an architecture adaptable to the present day. "Indo-European architects," he wrote, "must study the Indian works in depth, as our first rationalists studied medieval buildings, if they are to grasp the essence of this art and to find new impulses in it" (p. 159). Neither man won the debate, and van Dullemen writes that Pont "never received another new commission and he devoted the rest of his life to archaeological research on the East Javanese Majapahit empire" (p. 154).

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