Iconic install

Published: WORSHIP

Iconic install

Iconic install: A monument to Indonesia’s growing religious tolerance, the Katedral Mesias is also a landmark sound install. Richard Lawn reports

When the opening dedication of the Jakarta’s grand Katedral Mesias (The Cathedral of Messiah of Jakarta Reformed Evangelical Church) took place on 20 September 2008, it represented a peak in the Christian community’s fortunes in Indonesia. Given the climate of Christian-Muslim hostility in the late 1990s, which persisted into the past decade, building the megachurch was never going to be easy. In fact, it took 16 years for Reverend Dr Stephen Tong to be granted planning permission by the authorities. The Chinese-Indonesian multimillion-dollar structure, which includes two chapels, covers a total area of 60,000-sq-m in the heart of the capital and can accommodate 6,300 people.

Reverend Tong has been forthright in dispelling the belief that Indonesia is intolerant of minority faiths. ‘This new Cathedral proves that there are no restrictions from the Indonesian government to build religious centres,’ says the preacher, who founded the Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Church in 1989. ‘It gives the world a new impression of Indonesia – it is not a messy country or full of troubles.’

In Indonesia, ethnic Chinese, who make up only about three per cent of the widespread Southeast Asian archipelago’s population, are predominantly Christians, while Christians account for about 10 per cent of Indonesia’s 226m people. ‘Other churches in Indonesia were established by the Dutch and until now many of them still rely on funding from abroad,’ says Reverend Tong. ‘But our church does not depend on overseas funding. This is the only national church, because the money is from Indonesia, the design is from Indonesia, the materials are from Indonesia. There was no support from overseas.’

While some experts believe that the megachurch in Jakarta was a sign of the growing confidence of the Christian community in Indonesia, others feel it could spark hard line anger and fears of conversions in the Muslim-majority nation. ‘If several parties perceive the church as a way to Christianise people, it could provoke hatred,’ offers director of the International Centre for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP), Syafi’i Anwar. ‘It is not proof that religious tolerance is running well here. Recently, there has been increasing pressure on the government from hard-line groups over freedom of faith.’

The large domed structure is a viper’s nest of acoustical problems. When coupled to the expansive nature of the 150° fan shaped room clad in marble, concrete and glass, the sound reinforcement required for speeches, prayers and sermons, in addition to organ accompaniments, was never going to be easy. A permanently installed ceiling suspended LR line array was originally provided for such needs, but with a reverberation time of 4s, the 4,500 seats especially towards the outer walls, suffered uneven sound dispersion and poor intelligibility. In response, the cathedral committee invited Renkus-Heinz distributor PT Citra Intirama to provide a column speaker sound solution for its services. Reverend Tong preaches in his native Taiwan from time to time, and having familiarised himself with Renkus-Heinz Iconyx speakers there, he put the idea of using them to the Katedral Mesias committee.

The manufacturer provided enthusiastic support to ensure the new sound system would be a success. Technical designer, Jim Mobley, designed an Iconyx system in Ease 4.2, which was fully installed in just three weeks by PT Citra Intirama’s preferred systems integrator, Ferry Global Pro Audio. Vice president Ralph Heinz flew to Jakarta in February 2010 for four nights in order to oversee the project together with PT Citra Intirama’s Eric Haslim. Two IC32 speakers have been mounted on the rear wall in front of the organ pipes behind the stage with special brackets, to serve the lower sanctuary seats. A further four IC16 column speakers have been erected on a curved catwalk 20m above the stage, which required considerable skill as the installers dangled on harnesses to fix the brackets into position. ‘This was by far the toughest install that we’ve worked on. However, when I overheard a church committee member quote the Iconyx speakers as being magic boxes, I knew that the hard work had paid off.’

 www.citraintirama.com

www.renkus-heinz.com

Published in Worship AVL Asia Spring 2010