d him to apply his design and graphic talents as concept designer and it was in this capacity that he worked on a series of major projects in Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. It is probably fitting therefore that one of these last projects, in which he designed the headquarters for Wisma Dharmala Sakti in Jakarta, should be the culmination of his distinguished career. It embodies impressively most of his best Late-Modernist theories and resolves the criticisms previously expressed about some of his work.
WISMA DHARMALA SAKTI, JAKARTA
The Dharmala office building rises twenty-six stories out of the pitched roofs of Jakarta, in a modern design which reflects the historic parts of the city where it is located. Its relationship with the existing bustle of small-scale buildings at the ground level is achieved by a multi-layered skirt of public rooms around an entrance courtyard. Rudolph planned this open atrium and its surrounds to be, ‘like a village, with all the ease of access and variety that villages always possess’. (13) The context and sense of place so important to Rudolph in his architecture has been achieved with the interaction of these spaces at these lower levels where the occupants walk into the building.
The Indonesian climate is hot and humid, and shade and breezes are welcome. So in this context, Rudolph has produced an architectural design system for this building which reflects the beautiful traditional roofs in this area, incorporating deep overhanging eaves and cantilevered spandrels with 45 degree slopes that shield all floors from direct sunlight.
The tower is heavily sculptured and twists and turns every three floors as it ascends to the top, a changing geometry that allows the faceted glass windows to form balconies and shrubbery boxes with these sloping spandrels. The visual balance between the vertical twin columns and the horizontal spandrels creates a richly sculptured tower which could have been built even higher, as it was originally designed. Frank Lloyd Wright also twisted various floor plans in his tower designs in the Johnson Building at Racine and elsewhere. Rudolph preferred to double up his columns in many of his designs since, set in pairs, they gave greater visual strength and direction than a static single column. At Dharmala, these twin columns are cross-braced at their base in a manner somewhat similar to the diagonal bracing on Norman Foster’s famous Hong Kong Shanghai Bank. At ground level, the entrance area with its many open levels and balcony walkway not only creates a sense of spaciousness appropriate to this headquarters building, but the stepped back offices surrounding the atrium create a cool, breeze-filled shaded open space It was however in the Far East that Rudolph, perhaps interlaced with balconies and walkways. The effect illustrates Rudolph’s ability to create well- proportioned human space inside the building contained by the office tower above whose dual columns thrust upwards through this entrance.
The space of the courtyard increases at each level like an inverted cone which allows natural light to stream in reflecting off the white tiled finishes. The use of these white tiles throughout the project – on columns, walls, spandrels and balconies – protects the concrete from mold growth in the humid climate and is a solution often used in the country. It also creates a feeling of cool, pristine white elegance and the small tiles give a friendly scale and texture to this otherwise large building. The multi-leveled terraces and vine-filled balconies, the waterfalls and water channels all with sloping spandrels help to unify and create the human scale characteristics of this elegant Late-Modern headquarters. It is a well-conceived design handled with the mastery of experience, exemplifying how a Late-Modern building fits in with its surroundings by means of a design language derived for its context, it creates human scale internal spaces, is impeccably detailed and uses sound technology and good materials. It is, of course, also generated from sound functional and st