History
The structure was built in 1926 during the Dutch colonial era, as a gift from the Queen to city's controleur. It was designed by architects Yazin and Sutan Gigi Ameh. Originally a rooster figure was placed on the apex, but it was changed into a Jinja-like ornament during the Japanese occupation. Following Indonesian independence, it was reshaped to its present form resembling traditional Minangkabaun roofs (see Rumah gadang). It is said to have cost 3,000 guilder.
Read more about this topic: Jam Gadang
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“When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.”
—Erma Brombeck (20th century)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)