Hotel Majapahit, Part I: Where Indonesian History was Made

I've been fortunate enough to stay in the Hotel Majapahit while in Surabaya. Not only is it a beautiful property, but it's also a historical landmark.

The Majapahit was built in 1910 by the Dutch and was known originally as the Hotel Oranje (Orange).  Much of the hotel was built in the Art Nouveau style popular at the time, but subsequent expansions were in an Art Deco motif.  The Art Deco lobby extension was inaugurated in 1930 with luminaries like Charlie Chaplain, Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness author), and Crown Prince Leopold of Belgium in attendance.

World War II brought a stark change to the hotel as the Japanese took over the property in 1942 during their occupation, renamed it The Hotel Yamato, and made it their military headquarters in East Java.

When the war ended, the Dutch hoped to regain control of Indonesia and used Room 33 as their military office and raised the Dutch flag on the hotel roof to demonstrate their return to power and, especially, to serve as a rebuke to the August 17, 1945 declaration of Indonesian independence by Soekarno.  But, the Indonesian people, hungry for independence, no longer wished to live under Dutch oppression and demanded that the Dutch flag be removed.

When the leader of the Dutch contingent, using rude and condescending language, refused to take the flag down on September 19, 1945, a group of Indonesian revolutionaries scaled the top of the hotel and tore the blue section off the Dutch flag, leaving the red and white remnants which constitute the Indonesian flag.  The Dutch leader was killed in the melee that followed and this incident, known as the Incident of the Flag, helped mobilize the forces for Indonesian independence in their struggle to break free of Dutch rule.  This event is widely viewed as one of the crucial moments in the struggle for independence and has been highly romanticized and mythologized over the years. 

The Majapahit underwent various changes in ownership after the war and by the early 1990s was a fading relic.  The hotel was purchased by the Mandarin Oriental group in 1996 and underwent significant renovation. The hotel underwent a second renovation under another group of owners in 2009 and became a National Heritage Landmark of Indonesia and has since won numerous awards as one of the distinctive hotels of the world.

If you wander through the lobby you will find a dramatic, life-sized painting commemorating the Incident of the Flag and, above the hotel entrance, the Indonesian flag still flies on the pole where 76 years ago, a few daring Indonesian rebels took a stand against Dutch power.












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