Some days ago an Indonesian TV-journal broadcasted an item about the Banda Aceh mosque which stands still proudly, almost unscattered, amongst all the rubble, after the tsunamidisaster.
Unfortunatly the item was clearly unresearched, claiming that the mosque was 700 years old and destroyed by the Dutch. An obvious contradiction, but something I am already used to, as found more often in the Indonesian depiction of colonial and pre-colonial history.
The present mosque (Mesjid Raya later renamed Baiturrahman was build in 1879-1881 by the Dutch government as a token of peace, and as replacement of a mosque build somewhat earlier in 1872 by sultan Nur al-Alam. The architect was the Italian-born De Bruchi. He used the Moghul Indian style. For more information see:
http://archnet.org/library/sit(...)ite.tcl?site_id=7487
The Dutch builded more mosques in Indonesia. Another fine example is the mosque in Medan. But also smaller ones throughout Java.
