The Aceh Museum Tsunami History

hello hive community, come back with me in a new post, on this occasion I will share my internship experience while at the tsunami museum.

First of all, I want to explain what is a tsunami museum?

The Aceh Tsunami Museum is a symbolic monument to commemorate the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Aceh in 2004. This building holds various evidences of the enormity of the 2004 tsunami, as well as an educational center and an emergency shelter when the tsunami struck. This museum building was designed by an architecture lecturer at ITB Bandung, M. Ridwan Kamil. The design, entitled Rumoh Aceh as Escape Hill, takes the basic idea of ​​rumoh Aceh, which is a traditional Acehnese house in the form of a house on stilts. The Aceh Tsunami Museum is located in the Taman Sari city of Banda Aceh, approximately 500 meters from the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in Banda Aceh.

The Aceh tsunami museum was built on the initiative of several institutions, namely the Aceh-Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Regional Government, the Banda Aceh City Government, and the Indonesian Architects Association. This museum was inaugurated in 2008 and opened in 2011. The purpose of its construction is not only to commemorate the earth that caused the 2004 tsunami but also to become an education center and an evacuation center if a tsunami disaster strikes again. In this museum, visitors can experience firsthand the experience of the Acehnese people in dealing with the Tsunami.

​This museum has 3 floors, where the 1st floor is an open area that can be seen from the outside and functions as a place to commemorate the tsunami. On this floor there are several rooms that contain traces of the 2004 tsunami, namely the tsunami hallway which is a narrow passage with waterfalls that emit thunderous sounds on both sides as if reminding him of a tsunami wave. There is also a prayer well with the names of the tsunami victims neatly written on the walls and ceiling and the calligraphy of Allah's name at the top.

From the outside it can be seen that this building is shaped like a ship, with a lighthouse standing above it. The extraordinary exterior appearance expresses the diversity of Acehnese culture as seen from the non-transparent decorative ornaments of the outer skin elements of the building. This ornament is a reflection of the Saman dance as Hablumminannas, which is the concept of human relations in Islam.

​On the 2nd floor contains media for the tsunami showroom, an audio-visual room showing a video reenactment (documentation) of the 2004 tsunami in Aceh. Then there is the pre-tsunami space, during the tsunami, and the post-tsunami space. Several pictures of tsunami events, tsunami traces, and dioramas are shown. In addition, several images of tsunami events, tsunami trace artifacts, and dioramas are also on this floor. One of them is the diorama of a fishing boat that was hit by the tsunami and the diorama of a PLTD Apung ship that was stranded in Punge Blang Cut. There is also a connecting bridge between the 1st and 2nd floors, the bridge itself also has a meaning, namely as a symbol of peace in Aceh, where after the Acehnese passed the tsunami disaster in 2004 ago, the day came when many foreign nationals came to give donations to the people of Aceh, on the bridge of peace there are messages of peace from 54 countries that not only help the people of Aceh but also help build a tsunami museum in Aceh.

​On the 3rd floor, there are learning media in the form of a library, a volunteer exhibition room and barracks containing information about people's lives one day after the tsunami. Here there is a geological space that presents geological potential and geological disaster mitigation as well as tectonic processes that cause earthquakes and tsunamis.
​On the final level of the Aceh tsunami museum building, it functions as an escape building or self-rescue when a tsunami occurs again in the future. This roof level is not open to the public due to the concept of safety and security. From this roof level, almost the entire city of Banda Aceh can be seen.