Makassar Cathedral: A Preliminary Study of Its Architectural History
For a heritage architectural expansion optimize architectural acoustics and lighting design while respecting historical integrity
The Historical Evolution of Makassar Cathedral Driven by the continuous growth of the local congregation, the Church Leadership and Council made a decisive resolution in 2018 to initiate a major expansion of the Makassar Cathedral, officially known as the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Gereja Hati Yesus Yang Mahakudus).
Introduction: Understanding the Building Before Designing
Before considering acoustic and lighting interventions at Makassar Cathedral, I began by studying its architectural history. Every intervention takes place within a building that already has its own character—a character shaped by earlier design decisions, successive transformations, and the people who have worshipped there. Understanding that history provides an essential foundation for deciding how new work can contribute sensitively to the cathedral’s future.
Officially known as the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Gereja Hati Yesus Yang Mahakudus), Makassar Cathedral is a place of worship whose architecture has evolved alongside its community. Across generations, its spaces have accommodated prayer, liturgical celebrations, and significant moments in the lives of its congregation. Its historical significance therefore extends beyond its façade and architectural style to the continuity of worship and the memories associated with the building.
This preliminary study asks three questions: What has changed? What remains? And what gives the cathedral its identity? Examining its successive architectural forms helps reveal how each generation responded to new needs while maintaining a connection to the church’s past. It also provides a basis for identifying features and spatial relationships that deserve particular consideration in future interventions.
For my subsequent acoustic and lighting work, this historical understanding establishes the context for design. Before determining how the cathedral should sound or be illuminated, I wanted to understand how it became the place it is today—and which qualities should continue to shape its experience for generations to come.
Historical Context: The Cathedral and Its Community
Makassar Cathedral, officially known as Gereja Hati Yesus Yang Mahakudus—the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, stands on Jalan Kajaolalido in central Makassar, South Sulawesi. Its significance extends beyond the congregation that worships there regularly. As the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Makassar, it houses the archbishop’s cathedra, or episcopal chair, and serves as a gathering place for major celebrations of the wider Catholic community. This role was evident during preparations for Archbishop Fransiskus Nipa’s installation in October 2024, when representatives from parishes across the archdiocese were expected to gather there.
The community’s history reaches further back than the present building. The archdiocese’s historical account traces Catholic activity in South Sulawesi to the sixteenth century and describes Makassar as a refuge for Catholics arriving from Portuguese Malacca during the seventeenth century. War and the subsequent consolidation of Dutch control disrupted this presence. The circumstances that eventually produced today’s cathedral emerged much later: colonial permission for Catholic missionaries to reside in Makassar was granted in 1891, followed by the arrival of Father A. Asselbergs, SJ, in 1892. His residence established a more regular basis for pastoral care and the gradual growth of the community.
A permanent place of worship became an important next step. In 1895, land and a house were purchased on Komedistraat, now Jalan Kajaolalido, at the location of the present cathedral. Historian Ahmad Yunani’s study records that the acquisition was supported by money borrowed from religious sisters in Semarang. The same study dates the church’s construction to 1898–1900. These beginnings reveal a building made possible through both local initiative and support from a wider Catholic network.
As the congregation expanded, the original building became inadequate. The parish’s published building history gives a particularly useful explanation of the enlargement initiated in 1939: the church had approximately 200 seats, insufficient for the assembled congregation, while its small sacristy and lack of confessionals and side altars also limited liturgical arrangements. The response involved alterations to the side walls, an enlarged sacristy behind the sanctuary, and additional facilities for worship. The expansion therefore addressed both the number of people attending and the practical requirements of parish life.
Adaptation continued in later decades. The parish account records that the balcony was replaced and enlarged in 1984 to accommodate approximately 120 people. This intervention illustrates how the cathedral’s capacity developed through successive adjustments, alongside the more conspicuous changes to its external appearance.
The recent expansion belongs to this longer history of responding to community needs. In 2018, church leadership and the council decided to pursue a further enlargement as the congregation continued to grow. Construction remained underway in October 2024, according to the parish priest’s contemporary account, and the cathedral was formally dedicated and inaugurated on 30 October 2025. By December 2025, the parish priest described the new worship space as accommodating approximately 1,000–1,200 people, with supplementary areas available for larger celebrations.
For my preliminary architectural study, this history suggests that the cathedral’s identity should be understood through the relationship between its building and its community. Successive generations have inherited a place of worship and adapted it to sustain their shared religious life. Understanding those decisions helps explain why the architecture changed—and provides a foundation for considering which qualities should remain meaningful as the cathedral continues to evolve.
The First Architectural Form: Neo-Gothic Origins
The earliest architectural form of Makassar Cathedral established a recognisable Gothic Revival character through its pointed openings, decorated gables, and slender pinnacles. Historical photographs show a relatively compact church whose architectural identity depended on the relationship between a simple main volume and carefully articulated details. These images provide an important starting point for understanding the building before its subsequent enlargements.
Construction and the People Behind the Building
Ahmad Yunani’s historical study places construction between 1898 and 1900, following the acquisition of the site in 1895. This chronology provides a useful working framework, although accounts differ on the precise commencement date. It should therefore be distinguished from a fully verified sequence of groundbreaking, construction, first use, and blessing.
The parish’s published building history attributes the original design to Swartbol, a military engineering officer. According to this account, he departed for Europe after the foundations had been completed. Responsibility then passed to S. Fischer, an irrigation specialist, while Thio A Tek, a Chinese contractor, undertook the construction. The same account records a delay while iron window frames were awaited from the Netherlands. These details reveal a building process involving several contributors and imported components, although their precise appointments and the spelling of their names remain subject to archival confirmation.
Reading the Original Façade
An early frontal photograph, catalogued by the Tropenmuseum collection as dating from 1900–1920, shows a composition organised around a central entrance. Above the doorway, a pointed decorative gable contains openwork ornament. Higher on the façade, a circular opening sits beneath the apex of the main gable, which is crowned by a cross. Slender pinnacles frame the composition and extend its upward emphasis.
In my reading of this photograph, the façade balances a broad, grounded wall surface with a sequence of vertical accents. The doorway establishes the human scale of arrival, while the ornament above it draws attention towards the upper façade. Its sense of height comes partly from this arrangement of openings, pinnacles, and the crowning cross. The circular opening is visible, but the photograph alone does not establish whether it contained elaborate tracery or coloured glazing.
Proportions, Openings, and Roofline
An oblique photograph catalogued as 1900–1919 reveals the building’s elongated body beneath a pitched roof. Tall, narrow pointed-arch windows recur along the side elevation, separated by projecting vertical wall elements. Small pinnacles punctuate the upper edges, while a slender open metal turret rises above the roof. Together, these features establish a repeated rhythm along the church’s length.
The parish history describes approximately twenty miniature towers as roof-edge ornament, alongside a small iron tower. This written description broadly corresponds with the repeated pinnacles visible in the early photographs. However, these exterior views cannot establish the original internal roof structure, ceiling construction, or dimensions; those questions require drawings, physical investigation, or additional archival evidence.
Architectural Character and Religious Identity
Taken together, the photographs support describing the early church as Neo-Gothic in its architectural vocabulary. Pointed arches, pinnacles, openwork ornament, and the prominent cross gave the building a recognisable ecclesiastical character. This description concerns the features visible in the historical record; it does not establish that the church possessed the complete structural system associated with medieval Gothic cathedrals.
For my historical study, the significance of this first form lies in how these elements worked together. I read the repeated vertical accents and rising central composition as expressions of aspiration, while the clearly defined entrance connected that symbolic character to the everyday act of entering a place of worship. This is an architectural interpretation of the surviving images, rather than a documented statement of the original designer’s intentions.
Understanding this early composition provides a reference for examining later transformations: which proportions and details survived, which were replaced, and how the cathedral’s religious identity remained legible as its architecture changed.
Makassar’s Roman Catholic church, now Makassar Cathedral, photographed between 1900 and 1919. Photographer unknown. Collectie Wereldmuseum (formerly Tropenmuseum), inventory TM-10016679, via Wikimedia Commons. Licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Second Architectural Form: Expansion and a Changing Architectural Character
By the late 1930s, Makassar’s Catholic congregation had outgrown its original church. The parish’s building history records approximately 200 seats, insufficient to accommodate the community, together with a sacristy that had become too small and a need for confessionals and side altars. The enlargement addressed these practical requirements while substantially changing the building’s architectural composition.
The works are generally associated with the 1939–1941 period, although their precise chronology remains unresolved. Ahmad Yunani’s historical study identifies alterations beginning in 1938–1939 and completion in 1941. The parish account, however, states that Easter was celebrated in the renovated church in 1940. These sources establish the late-1930s transformation, but do not provide a consistent date for its completion.
Expanding the Space for Worship
The parish account describes alterations to both side walls, the removal of four supporting pillars, and an enlarged sacristy behind the sanctuary. Two confessionals were introduced at the rear and two side altars at the front. These interventions responded to the different activities taking place within the church, from collective worship to preparation for Mass and individual confession.
Government heritage documentation provides further insight into the widening of the building. It describes additions along the northern and southern sides of the congregation’s space, incorporating formerly external columns into the interior and relocating pointed coloured-glass windows to the new outer walls. This account suggests that the enlargement reused elements of the earlier architectural arrangement. However, it does not establish that every alteration described belonged to a single construction campaign.
From an Ornamental Gable to a Dominant Entrance Tower
The most conspicuous external change was the introduction of a substantial tower connected directly to the entrance. The parish history records the removal of the separate iron bell tower on the southern side and its replacement by this integrated tower.
Comparing the early frontal photograph with C.J. Taillie’s photograph from 1948 reveals a different visual hierarchy. Previously, the central gable, circular opening, and slender pinnacles organised the façade. In the later image, the entrance tower dominates the composition, with broad wall surfaces, vertically arranged openings, and a steep, faceted roof. The earlier circular opening is no longer visible from this viewpoint, although the photograph alone cannot establish whether it was removed or concealed.
The transformation also simplified the silhouette. The numerous small pinnacles prominent in the early views no longer define the visible roofline. Nevertheless, pointed openings and portions of the gabled church body remain evident beside the tower. The resulting architecture combined a more substantial entrance composition with features that continued to recall the earlier church.
Interpreting the Architectural Change
The simplified surfaces and stronger geometric composition may invite comparison with Art Deco-era architecture. For this study, however, that remains a visual interpretation. The available heritage documentation describes the tower as a simplification of Gothic form, while Yunani’s research emphasises the building’s combination of architectural influences. A categorical description of the entire second form as Art Deco would therefore require stronger evidence.
For my preliminary study, the importance of this phase lies in the relationship between architectural change and community use. Enlarging the worship space altered the building’s boundaries, while the new entrance tower changed its public appearance. The cathedral acquired another historical layer through the practical task of accommodating a growing congregation. Understanding that layer helps identify both the continuity of its religious identity and the physical changes through which that continuity was sustained.
Tampilan ke dua Gereja Katedral Makassar (1941-2018)
The Art Deco Transformation (1939 – 2018): By 1939, growing attendance forced a major expansion. Completed in 1941, the architecture was substantially transformed into the Art Deco style. (Second Iteration: 1941 - 2018)
Tampilan ke tiga Gereja Katedral Makassar (2024- now)
The Modern Expansion (2018 – Present): As the Catholic community continued to multiply, the church committee organized an architectural design competition (beauty contest) to select the best master plan for the cathedral's future. (Third Iteration: 2024 - Present)
The Multidisciplinary Integration Workflow
To achieve true harmony between old and new, the engineering workflow must be unified from day one:
Historical Baseline Assessment: Analyze the acoustic and daylighting behavior of the existing structure alongside its cultural timeline.
Preliminary Digital Simulation: Model the proposed expansion alongside the historic core to simulate how sound waves and light beams transition from the old wing into the new volume.
Human-Centered Commissioning: Fine-tune the auralizations and lighting scenes with the building owners and occupants, ensuring the final sensory experience honors the community's emotional and cultural connection to the space.
Moving Forward: Elevating Your Digital Portfolio
Applying these human-centered building physics principles and structured case study formats will significantly strengthen your professional authority across all digital touchpoints. By clearly articulating how you balance rigorous scientific modeling with deep historical reverence, you provide architects, developers, and institutional leaders with absolute confidence in your multidisciplinary capabilities.
