Cultural Preservation And Religious Control On Regulating Of The Form And Use Of The Public Space

Abstract

Abstract In the new era of globalization, people are much more aware of the uniqueness and specialty of their
own culture. Banda Aceh, a capital city of Aceh province in Indonesia, which has concerned about this issue in the
last twelve years in preserving their own culture through injecting Sharia law (Islamic law) into constitutional law,
so called Qanun. Since Qanun regulates the governance and public life, many aspects either physically or nonphysically
has been influenced
since, including
how to use
and behave in
the public space.
There are significant differences in controlling public space of Banda Aceh city among the other public space
control in the other cities in Indonesia. Both soft and hard control mechanism are developed such as, 1) dress
code, illicit relationship, gambling, and drinking prohibition in the public space including the punishment are
posted; 2) surveillance and policing by Sharia police; 3) public space facilities possibly to be designed to prevent
from unacceptable behavior within Muslim society; and 4) limited access and territory for some religious or
cultural reasons. However, these unique public space control possibly have potential impacts on certain attributes
in the public space, for instance, different controls have different impact on a certain group of people or different
kind of public space within the city.
This paper will first discuss the history of public space development, the typology of existing public space,
their functions and activities in Banda Aceh city. Secondly, how these space are regulated pre- and post – Sharia
law and how the law potentially affected the design and use of public space by different social group will be
explored. The methodologies of this research include document review, direct observations on public space and a
pilot survey study on people’s attitude toward the law. The results of this research hope to serve basic information
for planners and designers on how to design, plan and regulated the public space for Muslim communities such as
Banda Aceh city.

Keywords: Sharia law, public space regulation, cultural – based design