Museum Mandiri — Attraction in Jakarta

Bank Mandiri Museum is one of the tourist destinations offered in the Kota Tua, or old city area of ​​Jakarta. This museum is precisely located at Jalan Lapangan Stasiun No.1 West Jakarta, DKI Jakarta. Located right opposite the Transjakarta bus stop and not far from Kota Tua Station. Historically, this museum building was built in 1929 as the building of the Netherlands Handicraft-Maatschappij (NHM), a Dutch-owned trading company in the banking sector. The building was designed by 3 Dutch architects, including J.J.J de Bruyn, A.P. Smits and C. Van de Linde with the Niew Zakelijk or Classical Art Deco architecture. This building later became the office of the Import Export Farmers and Fishermen Cooperative Bank office in 1960 when NHM was nationalized into an Indonesian company. Until finally in 1999 the Indonesian Export Import Bank was legally merged with Bank Mandiri and this building became an asset of Bank Mandiri. Inside the Bank Mandiri Museum there are various kinds of collectibles related to banking in the past and its development. Some of the collection items are charts that tell the short history of Bank Mandiri, then several collections of securities such as certificates of deposit, checks, bonds, shares, up to several photos and other interesting documents relating to the Bank Mandiri Museum. In addition, there are also various items that help with the banking process, such as typewriters, coin counting machines, calculators, bookkeeping machines, and old atm machines that are very unique and far different from current atm machines. Fun again, in this museum there are also various dioramas depicting economic activities such as the story of Indonesian trade in the royal era, then dioramas save of various banks, to diorama of old banking activities. Uniquely, in the front room there was also a room for Kassier. This museum seems to greatly increase the knowledge of banking and history of Indonesian banks, especially Bank Mandiri. Besides that, the interesting way to present the museum makes our visits to this museum...

I visited Museum Mandiri recently and was pleasantly surprised by how much it has improved since my last visit around 2007/2008. The ticket price is very affordable — only Rp 5,000 for adults and Rp 3,000 for students, and you can conveniently pay via QR. They also have an immersive room experience, which in my case was available at 3 PM — definitely worth checking out if you come at the right time.

The museum now features more interactive and informative rooms, and everything was clean and cool inside — a big plus considering how hot it was outside during the afternoon. I also appreciated the stamp-collecting feature, although we didn’t know beforehand and ended up stamping on a supermarket receipt. A little heads-up or info at the entrance would’ve helped.

That said, a few rooms still felt a bit empty, and the directional signs could be improved. At one point, we saw an "exit" sign and assumed the museum tour was over, only to realize we had missed some sections due to unclear flow. Hopefully, the signage can be made clearer for a better visitor experience.

There’s also a small merchandise shop, which is nice, but I think the selection could be more creative. I was looking for a fridge magnet and found only one type — though it was quite nice!

Overall, a great cultural stop with lots of potential. Worth a visit, especially if you enjoy history and...

My kids and I didnt plan to visit the museum. The spot was accidentally seen when we wanted to reach Kota train station on the way home. With dutch colonial architecure, the building looked antique and elegant inviting curiosity. It was almost 15.00 when arrived and the museum will be closed at 15.30. I thought we're gonna spend only 15 minutes then continued quickly to catch our train because it's very close to rush hours...but I was totally wrong. At 15.31 we had to go out but there is still much to explore.

The exhibit starts with the flash back of the history of VOC which represented colonial power in Indonesia. VOC formed a single organization, traded across a vast area, possessed superior military force (there are displays about Imam Bonjol and Pangeran Diponegoro wars), and, in time, employed a bureaucracy of servants to look after its interests.

Then continued with the history of the development of capitalism in Indonesia until the modern era. So many displays including the unused broken hardware and software as well -- of banking system give a general picture how the capitalism is applied in Indonesia.

In short it's very educational for the young generation to learn not to do the same mistakes made by the...