ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two examples of Indonesia’s state-sponsored fantasy architecture - the national theme park ‘Taman Mini’ and the international section of the Hatta-Sukarno Airport at Chengkareng, both just outside the nation’s capital, Jakarta. It shows that the arrangement of the cultural park, with its central axis ringed by a supporting and orderly periphery and Taman Mini’s architectural framing, assert the centrality of Javanese overlordship within the national cosmograph design. The chapter describes Taman Mini as a cosmograph by beginning with the periphery, that is to say, the ethnic groups that compose the nation, which are given visible form in the numerous house types displayed in the park. The house, in sum, was and continues to be a densely meaningful sign - a palpable, indeed, a live-in and walk-through sign - that ties together cosmos, kinship, the relations between the sexes, hierarchy, and the inscription of directions on the body and in social geography.
