INTRODUCTION Proceedings International Seminar The Knowledge City: Spirit, Character, and Manifestation
and Manifestation, Medan, 13
th
- 14
th
November 2007
356 One of the challenges in city developments, which has not still be
seriously dealt with, is doing city modernizations with the sensibility of kampong reality as a local element and to integrate it
into the urban system. Therefore, the opinion that ignores kampong as a local concept in the city development also means
rejecting the apt reality of urbanity in Indonesia.
Architecturally, a city can be perceived as a whole unity which includes a planned part of city and an organic one which
grows spontaneously along with the community needs. The difference between the space configuration which is created
spontaneously, informally, and is a result of formal rational planning, can actually strengthen the urban characters. As a
settlement area, kampong does not be able to be disintegrated from the other parts of a city. In other words, physical-spatially,
those two spatial configurations should be integrated. Both physically and socially, kampong is the part of the city which
always exists and be needed in urban life in Indonesia. In Bandung and lots of other big cities, kampong is a type of
settlement which has been there from the beginning of the city; therefore, it takes role in building the city characters and
morphologies. On the other hand, the city development which is held along this time tends not to be aware or even neglect
kampong’s roles in the city modernization process. Therefore, one of the purposes of this study is explaining the kampong’s
existence and roles in the city. Such issue is a real challenge in city developments. In the discipline of architecture, the problems
of spatial linkages between the kampong and the city are almost neglected in understandings urbanity in Indonesia.