Rumah adat are traditional houses built in any of the vernacular architecture styles of Indonesia, collectively belonging to the Austronesian architecture. The traditional houses and settlements of the several hundreds ethnic groups of Indonesia are extremely varied and all have their own specific history.[1]: 5 It is the Indonesian variants of the whole Austronesian architecture found all over places where Austronesian people inhabited from the Pacific to Madagascar each having their own history, culture and style.
Ethnic groups in Indonesia are often associated with their own distinctive form of rumah adat.[2] The houses are at the centre of a web of customs, social relations, traditional laws, taboos, myths and religions that bind the villagers together. The house provides the main focus for the family and its community, and is the point of departure for many activities of its residents.[3] Villagers build their own homes, or a community pools its resources for a structure built under the direction of a master builder or carpenter.[2]
The vast majority of Indonesians no longer live in rumah adat, and the numbers have declined rapidly due to economic, technological, and social changes.
- ^ Reimar Schefold; P. Nas; Gaudenz Domenig, eds. (2004). Indonesian Houses: Tradition and Transformation in Vernacular Architecture. NUS Press. ISBN 9789971692926.
- ^ a b Dawson (1994), p. 10
- ^ Dawson (1994), p. 8