Social Space as People-gathering Tool

AbstractModern cities designed by architects and urban planners often destroy local cultures, remove the traces of the human civilization that already settled for a long time, so that it makes the history of the development and changes of the city unrecognizable. With the aim of generating profits from commercial buildings, architects and designers sometimes abandon and even get rid of old spaces and local communities. As a place of settlement for the Tamil community since 1917, Kampung Keling has been able to maintain its presence as a unique area in the midst of the development of the city of Medan. Nowadays, Tamil is not a major community in the area, but the Chinese belong 85 percent of the buildings in Kampung Keling. A harmonious relationship between the remained Tamil local community and Chinese newcomer community has generated new social space. For a full month before the celebration of the Chinese New Year, Eid Al-Fitr and Christmas & New Year annually, Tamil community blend with the people of the city. They interact in the sale and purchase of fireworks in the small stalls that they open in front of the shop houses belonged to the Chinese community along the pedestrian path in Zainul Arifin Street. On the grand, every year on December 31st night Kampung Keling becomes the centre of the fireworks festival, thousands of people gather in Kampung Keling to buy and light fireworks. This social space not only becomes a meeting place between Tamil community who lives in the periphery area and Chinese community who do business in the centre of Kampung Keling, but also becomes a place for gathering people from various corners in the city of Medan, regardless of their ethnicities and religions. This paper shows what extent the social space generated by Tamil and Chinese community becomes the central place where people gather in the city of Medan