Toraja Cultural Landscape: Tongkonan Vernacular Architecture and Toraja Coffee Culture

Abstract

Tongkonan is a style of vernacular architecture famous in Toraja, a mountainous region in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Tongkonan traditional house is a symbol of the Toraja people, representing the ancestors and the entire cosmos of life – from birth to death. The houses and their arrangement within a settlement form a social and cultural space that gathers the extended family of the Tongkonan. This article explores the landscape of Tongkonan architecture and coffee cultivation, showing how Tongkonan is essential to Toraja's cultural landscape and a foundation of Toraja coffee culture. The study draws together literature reviews, interviews, photographic and video observation, as well as photo-elicitation interviews. The research reveals that although the existence of Tongkonan architecture precedes the introduction of coffee cultivation, the Tongkonan's geographical closeness to the coffee farms, the historic economic importance of coffee, and the social and cultural relevance of Tongkonan creates a cultural landscape entangling Tongkonan settlements and forests, coffee farms and coffee culture activities. Tongkonan and coffee form Toraja's unique cultural landscape. The space of the Tongkonan, which includes coffee community activities, serves as a basis of Toraja coffee culture.

Keywords

• Toraja
• vernacular architecture
• coffee culture
• plantations
• cultural landscape
• Tongkonan