Balai selaso jatuh kembar

Siak Sri Indrapura, Riau

A balai selaso jatuh kembar is a Riau Malay council hall: a middle floor where people sit, and along each side a selaso — a long aisle whose floor has fallen a step below it. Kembar, because there are two of them and they match. What makes it worth building here is the direction of its step. Every other stepped floor in this collection is raised, and what it states is about a person: where a guest sits in a rumah limas, which laras a rumah gadang follows, which storey a sultan takes in a malige. This one is lowered, and what it states is about an activity — somebody can walk the whole length of the hall without once setting foot in its room, because passing through is not being present. The sun in this model is computed for Siak Sri Indrapura, 0.79° N and 102.05° E.

Carving is a large part of a Malay balai and almost none of it is here: the selembayung at the ends of the ridge are built as plain members, when it is the carving that makes them selembayung; the lebah bergantung, the singap and the ornament on walls and rails are not modelled at all. Beyond that: the depth of the fall is the author’s figure and everything this pack claims rests on it — one measurement of one hall would settle it; the divisions of the middle room and the rules about where people sit at a musyawarah are not built; Malay roof forms vary (lipat kajang, lontik, limas) and only one is built here; and halls of this kind now often stand as official provincial buildings, which is not the same thing as a negeri’s hall used for meeting in.