National Museum Off-limits to Tourists for a Year Post Fire

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian National Museum, popularly known as Museum Gajah, will be closed for one year after the fire hit on September 16, 2023. Secretary of the Culture Directorate General at the Education and Culture Ministry, Fitra Arda, said that this is to repair the effects of the incident.

“We will temporarily close the museum, maybe for a year. We will conduct [repairs] properly, and then we will reopen it,” Fitra said during a public discussion at the Toeti Heraty Museum in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on September 25, 2023.

The rehabilitation, he explained, begins with the renovation of the building until the restoration of the museum's collection.  However, the museum's services will still be available virtually or through other museum units.

He added that the Education and Culture Ministry is working with the police and experts to follow up on the impact of the blaze. Studies have been conducted on archaeological techniques, building audits, museum security, collection, human resources, and risk management. In addition, the ministry has been managing the affected collections and organizing the entire museum.

Source of fire

The museum was set ablaze allegedly due to a short circuit in the temporary building for the museum renovation project. The Fire and Rescue Agency head Asril Rizal said it started in the Blok A building used to display the collections.

Thus, the spark did not come from inside the building and spread to several other rooms.

Located at Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Gambir, the National Museum houses more than 190,000 objects of Indonesian history and culture. The collections are divided into several categories; prehistory, classical or Hindu-Buddhist archaeology, numismatics and heraldry, ceramics, ethnography, geography, and history.

ANTARA 

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