TRIP TO MUSEUM

Last week, we visited House of Sampoerna, a cigarette museum located on Taman Sampoerna. The site on which this museum sits was built in 1893 and it used to function as a Dutch orphanage. The complex consists of one main building in the center, two smaller buildings stand on the right side and another building is located on the left. At first, the central building functioned as an auditorium. 

In 1932, Liem Seeng Tee, a businessman who owned a cigarette company bought it for his private residence and he turned the central building into a performing arts center, named Sampoerna Theatre. Sampoerna Theatre was the only performing arts center in Java that had a rotating stage and special effect floor. It was the most distinctive theatre in Surabaya at that time because it often played circus show, drama and theatrical performance from Hong Kong and China. In fact, Charlie Chaplin, the famous pantomimist from US, visited this place in 1932. 

Now, the site has been entirely changed. The theatre location has been used as a factory area, the central main building has become a cigarette museum, and two buildings on the right changed their functions into a café and a security office, while the other building on the left is still used as a private residence. 

Liem Seeng Tee and his wife, Siem Tjiang Nio pic on a wardrobe