Spotlight on Bali
Hawaii, Bali form sister state relationship
Bali: A Paradise Created
Adrian Vickers
From the artists and writers of the 1930s to the Eat, Pray, Love tours so popular today, Bali has drawn hoards of foreign visitors and transplants to its shores. What makes Bali so special, and how has it managed to preserve its identity despite a century of intense pressure from the outside world?
Bali: A Paradise Created bridges the gap between scholarly works and more popular travel accounts. It offers an accessible history of this fascinating island and an anthropological study not only of the Balinese, but of the paradise–seekers from all parts of the world who have traveled to Bali in ever–increasing numbers over the decades.
This Bali travelogue shows how Balinese culture has pervaded western film, art, literature and music so that even those who’ve never been there have enjoyed a glimpse of paradise. This authoritative, much–cited work is now updated with new photos and illustrations, a new introduction, and new text covering the past twenty years.
More Information Architecture of Bali: A Source Book of Traditional and Modern Forms
Made Wijaya
This is at once a compendium for designers and an entertaining essay on the architecture of Asia’s most glamorous tropical island by one of its foremost admirers. Landscape and architectural designer Made Wijaya draws on his photographic archives, compiled over the past thirty years, to present a visual study of Balinese architecture: its origins, elements, variations, and vagaries. The book opens with an overview of Balinese architecture and then looks at its basic elements–the walled courtyard and the pavilion. Further chapters examine building materials, ornamentation, and architectural hybrids resulting from other ethnic influences. Progressing through the book, Bali’s intricate built landscape becomes legible and ever more surprising.
With a sharp eye for trends, and passionate opinions about how Balinese design principles should be applied, Wijaya enhances his survey of traditional Balinese architecture with examples of its adaptation in modern private houses and boutique hotel architecture on Bali. In addition to Wijaya’s own archive photographs, the book is illustrated with the work of internationally acclaimed artists; specialist photographers including Tim Street-Porter and Rio Helmi; as well as drawings by Chang Huai-Yan and Deni Chung. This remarkable book is for anyone interested in ethnic architecture. Designers will find it useful as a source book for materials, built form, and ornamentation and ideas about the use of space. Lovers of Bali will want this for its documentation of a rapidly changing world.
More InformationBali: An Open Fortress 1995 – 2000
Henk Schulte Nordholt
The book analyzes recent changes in Bali in the field of politics, religion, and identity politics and concentrates on the impact of regional autonomy and democracy. The Indonesian island of Bali depends on the outside world for tourists, capital, and cheap labor, but the island’s people feel threatened by external forces (powerful investors, Western decadence, Islam). Bali-The Open Fortress describes the effects of decentralization and democratization on life and politics on the island, and the efforts of urban intellectuals to maintain and reinforce a Balinese identity. In discussing events over the past decade, the author considers caste and power relations at provincial, district, and village levels, the role of criminal gangs and violent conflict, and the workings of local democracy.
Bali: Island of the Gods
Bali is easily the best known and most frequently visited island of Indonesia. Drawn exclusively from the National Gallery of Australia’s rich and varied holdings, Bali: Island of the Gods features some of the finest works of art―silk and gold textiles, ritual objects made from precious metals, intricately carved architectural features, and finely drawn manuscripts depicted by some of the island’s most skilled artisans. Together these works demonstrate the brilliance and dynamism of the only remaining Hindu culture in the Southeast Asian region.
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