Sarinah

Sarinah
Sarinah Department Store
General information
Type	Commercial
Architectural style	International style, Postmodernism
Address	Jalan M. H. Thamrin No. 11 Gondangdia, Menteng, Central Jakarta, Indonesia
Coordinates	6°11′15″S 106°49′26″E / 6.187587°S 106.823829°E / -6.187587; 106.823829
Opened	August 1966
Design and construction
Main contractor	Obayashi Corporation
Website
www.sarinah.co.id

Sarinah, dubbed "The Indonesian Emporium", is a department store in Gondangdia, Menteng, Jakarta, Indonesia. It is located at the intersection of Jalan Kyai Haji Wahid Hasyim and Jalan M. H. Thamrin. Sarinah is Jakarta's first modern department store, famous for having Indonesia's first escalators, for being air-conditioned and for having electronic cash registers.

Sarinah is owned and operated by PT Sarinah (Persero), which was incorporated on 17 August 1962 as PT Department Store Indonesia. The entity is wholly owned by the government of Indonesia and was renamed in 1979.

In the early 1960s Indonesia was hit by very high inflation rates. President Soekarno believed that a department store would act as a price stabilizer to help keep prices under control, a view he formed after visiting several communist capitals including Moscow, Prague and Warsaw. The department store was built by Obayashi Corporation using Japanese war reparation funds and opened in August 1966. The project was conceived by President Sukarno, who named it Sarinah after his childhood nanny.

In an effort to pursue its price stabilization agenda, state-owned Sarinah department store published weekly grocery price lists. However, it failed almost immediately in this role as there was a limit to what one store or even a few stores could do in such a large country. Sarinah struggled to compete with other retailers and went into debt as it expanded aggressively into other cities in Indonesia.

In the early 1970s, in an effort to survive, Sarinah moved its focus to local handicrafts, especially the Batik. Sarinah is still best known for Batik today. In 1973, Sukarno affirmed that "The Sarinah department store will become one of the important tools for the organization of Indonesian socialism..." and "if Sarinah sells a blouse for 10 rupiah then another retailer will not dare to sell the same blouse for 20 rupiah".

In the 1990s, after leasing out some of its space to the McDonald's and Hard Rock Cafe, Sarinah managed to rejuvenate itself as a popular place for young people.