JAKARTA — For the first time since it declared independence in 1945, Indonesia held its official national day celebrations outside Jakarta this year. Flag-raising ceremonies were observed simultaneously on Aug. 17 in Jakarta, on the island of Java, and in Nusantara, the country’s new capital city, currently being carved out the jungles of Borneo. President Joko Widodo oversaw the celebration in Nusantara, with Vice President Ma’ruf Amin presiding over the ceremony in Jakarta. Days earlier, the president, popularly known as Jokowi, had complained that the State Palace in Jakarta, the former seat of the Dutch colonial governor, “smells colonial,” and contrasted it with the newly built presidential palace in Nusantara. The Garuda Palace, named and designed after a mythical bird that also serves as Indonesia’s state emblem, is meant to symbolize the country’s founding value of “unity in diversity.” It’s also designed to be a “green building,” in line with Jokowi’s broader claims that the new capital will be an environmentally friendly and “smart” city. But that’s not the case, according to architect Tiyok Prasetyoadi, deputy chair of the Green Building Council Indonesia, which advises developers on minimizing their environmental and carbon footprints. The massive Garuda structure that serves as the dramatic backdrop to the new palace features a pair of wings constructed with 4,661 blades of steel, copper and brass. Each blade weighs 0.3 metric tons, for a total weight of nearly 1,400 metric tons per wing. That, said Tiyok, is “excessive.” “The Garuda statue uses a lot of…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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