National Monument

Monas stands in the middle of Merdeka Square, the vast open field at the centre of Jakarta, and was begun in 1961 on Sukarno's instruction as the monument of the independence struggle, opened to the public in 1975 under Suharto. It is a marble-clad shaft a hundred and thirty-two metres high on a broad base, topped by a bronze flame sheathed in gold leaf - originally around thirty-five kilograms, added to for the fiftieth anniversary. The form is read officially as the lingga and yoni, a Javanese-Hindu pairing of masculine and feminine principles. In the base is a diorama museum of Indonesian history in forty-eight scenes and a hall holding the original proclamation text of 1945; a lift runs to an observation deck below the flame, for which the queue is often long.

History

After the government returned to Jakarta in 1950, Sukarno began to plan a national monument comparable to the Eiffel Tower on the square before the presidential palace; a committee was formed on 17 August 1954, and a design competition in 1955 drew 51 entries, of which only Friedrich Silaban's met the criteria. Sukarno wanted the monument to take the form of a lingga and yoni, construction began in 1961, and it opened to the public in 1975 (Wikipedia, National Monument (Indonesia)).

What you'll find

• A 132-metre marble shaft - topped with a gold-leaf flame.
• A lingga and yoni form - the Javanese-Hindu reading of the design.
• Forty-eight history dioramas - the national narrative in the base museum.
• An observation deck - the lift to below the flame, over the whole city.

When to go

All year; early to avoid the deck queue. Two hours.

Before you go

The lift queue can run to hours at weekends and in school holidays. The dioramas present an official version of history. Merdeka Square is enormous, hot and shadeless.

Nearby

Istiqlal, the cathedral and the National Museum are all around the square.

Key facts