Jakarta Tower - History

History

The Suharto regime intended Jakarta Tower to be the tallest structure in the world. International architecture design firms were invited to propose designs for the structure. The design itself should represent Trilogi Pembangunan (government's national development philosophy), Pancasila (the national philosophy, which consists of five factors), and August 17 (Indonesia's independence day). The winning design was created by Murphi/Iohn from the United States. However, since the design was too costly to develop, the government opted the runner-up design by East China Architecture Design & Research Institute (ECADI), who created the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower in China.

The development of the tower was initially developed by Sudwikatmono, Prajogo Pangestu and Henry Pribadi, operated by the company, PT Indocitra Graha Bawana. Its cost was estimated around 400 million US dollars (at that time still around Rp 900 billion).

Originally, the Jakarta Tower will be built in the Kuningan area, but Soerjadi Soedirdja, the Governor of Special Capital District of Jakarta at that time, did not agree, and proposed to build it in the Kemayoran area that was still under-developed.

Design companies of international calibre architecture were invited to participate in the design contest of architecture for this building. The provisions of this contest were that this building must contain the symbol of the Trilogy of the Development, Pancasila (the 5 basic Principles of Republic of Indonesia) and on August 17 (the Republic of Indonesia independence day declaration). The design and the scale model of the tower were shown to the Secretary of State, Moerdiono (at that time) as Chairman of Organizer Agency and the Development of the Bandar Kemayoran Baru in the Secretariat of the Country.

In 1996, this contest was won by Murphi/Jahn from the United States. Only, because this design was too expensive to be developed, then the government chose the design from the second winner namely East China Architecture Design & Research Institute (ECADI), that also constructive Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower in China. This ECADI design was chosen because the juries considered this design was simple and still had nuances of Asia.

The appointment of the development was carried out in 1997 by Jakarta Governor, Soerjadi Soedirdja and Secretary of State, Moerdiono after being agreed to by President Soeharto at the President’s Executive Office in Jakarta. President Soeharto proposed that the name of the Jakarta Tower was replaced to the Trilogy Tower.

The development of the Trilogy Tower began to be carried out in 1997. Because the budget grew, the developer began to look for the injection of the fund from the foreign investor. The total fund that was needed to around 560 million US dollar (at that time around Rp 1.2 trillion). The foreign group was aimed at had some shares and the rest were held by the domestic developer.