R. A. A. Martanegara

Raden Adipati Aria Martanegara was one of Bandung's former mayor from 1893 until 1918. He was born on the 9th of February 1845. Unlike other previous Bandung mayors who were from the Menak Bandung descendants, Martanegara is a great-grandson of the former mayor of Sumedang which is Prince Kusumadinata XI, also well known as Pangeran Kornel (1792 - 1828).

Childhood

Even though he wasn't from the same offspring as the previous mayors, Martanegara made quite a big difference in building Bandung into a modern city in his period. When he was little, he was taken cared of by Raden Saleh, one of Indonesia's well-known artist or painter. He also pursued his engineering studies at Ambachtschool back when he was young. 

Achievement

Martanegara made several actions for city development programs in Bandung, such as paving the streets in Bandung with stones, physical city developments, revamping Braga Street into a commercial area, and many more. 

Related Places

Ambachtschool was where he pursued his engineering studies. Braga Street and Groote Postweg (Dutch companies offices) are also places where he did some construction.

History

The appointment of Martanegara as the mayor of Bandung didn't run smoothly. Many of his people didn't agree for him to be a mayor. There were many important events such as the blasting of the Cikapundung bridge on his celebration of him being inaugurated, also terrors like the bombing attempt of the train he seated on to murder him, in fact one of the figures involved in this attempt was the father of R. Dewi Sartika. Those attempts to drag Martanegara down from his position never succeeded. Instead, Martanegara made a difference in Bandung and turned it into a modern city.