There is a puddle in Kemayoran where the tallest tower in the world was supposed to stand. That is the short version. The longer version involves two presidents, an international design competition, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, a nickname meaning "Tower of Imbalance," allegations of church appropriation, and nearly three decades of starts and stops that have made Jakarta Tower one of the most famously unbuilt structures on Earth. At 558 meters, the completed tower would surpass every freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere and stand more than four times taller than the Monas, Jakarta's national monument. But "would" has been the operative word since 1997.
The tower was born in the ambition of the New Order. President Suharto's government wanted something that would announce Indonesia's arrival on the world stage - not just tall, but the tallest. An international design competition was launched with specific requirements: the tower must symbolize Trilogi Pembangunan, the government's development philosophy; incorporate Pancasila, the five-principle national ideology; and reference the date of Indonesian independence, 17 August. The American firm Murphi/Jahn won the competition in 1996, but their design proved too expensive to build. The government turned to the runner-up, East China Architecture Design and Research Institute, the firm behind Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower. Their design was chosen because the judges considered it simple and distinctly Asian. Suharto himself weighed in on the name, proposing it be called the Trilogy Tower.
Construction began in 1997, developed by a consortium led by Sudwikatmono, Prajogo Pangestu, and Henry Pribadi through their company PT Indocitra Graha Bawana. The initial cost estimate was US$400 million, roughly 900 billion rupiah at the time. As costs mounted, the developers sought foreign investment, pushing the required total to US$560 million. Then the Asian financial crisis hit. The Indonesian property market collapsed practically overnight, dragging down construction projects across the archipelago. The Trilogy Tower was among the casualties. Work stopped. The construction site in Kemayoran, the former international airport district of Central Jakarta, was abandoned. Rainwater filled the foundations, and what was to be a symbol of national ambition became, quite literally, a wide puddle.
Even before the crisis killed it, the tower had critics. In a country where economic inequality was already a source of deep frustration, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a vanity project struck many as obscene. Theo Syafei, a former territorial military commander, suggested the money would be better spent developing eastern Indonesia. The Jakarta Post called it the "tower of indifference." Members of the People's Representative Council compared it to the "lighthouse projects" of the Sukarno era - grand gestures designed to impress the world while ordinary citizens saw little benefit. The tower acquired a local nickname: menara kesenjangan, the Tower of Imbalance. Sudwikatmono pushed back, arguing that unlike the government-funded Monas, this was a private enterprise. Secretary of State Moerdiono deflected concerns about social inequality by emphasizing the tower's technical value for radio and television broadcasting.
The Indonesian economy eventually recovered, and so did the tower's ambitions. In 2003, a new consortium called PT Persada Japa Pamudja took over the project, and in April 2004 Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso and the Secretary of State formally relaunched construction. The estimated cost had risen to 1.4 trillion rupiah, later ballooning to 2.7 trillion as global steel prices climbed. The project was to be financed through capital participation, syndicated loans, and pre-sales of the tower's planned condominiums, offices, and retail space. But momentum stalled again. In October 2010, the tower's consultant and designer, Wiratman Wangsadinata, officially announced that construction had been suspended due to lack of financing. By 2015, a major developer began marketing condominiums and offices on the site, and the tower project appeared to be dead. Then, in July 2025, real estate tycoon Sugianto Kusuma and his Agung Sedayu Group confirmed they would take over the Jakarta Tower - beginning yet another chapter in its long, unfinished saga.
The plans, at least on paper, remain extraordinary. The tower's design calls for three cylindrical legs, each 13.2 meters in diameter, rising 500 meters and supporting the observation and broadcast levels above. Two legs would carry three elevators each; the third would house eight elevators dedicated to visitors traveling at seven meters per second. An 80-meter-diameter foundation would be driven 58 meters into the soft Jakarta ground. The planned facilities read like a small city: a 144,000-square-meter parking structure, a 17-story podium, a rotating restaurant, a mega mall, an amusement park, a museum of Indonesian history, a hotel, condominiums, a conference center for 10,000, and a multimedia broadcasting hub. Developers projected four to six million annual visitors. Whether the Agung Sedayu Group can deliver what three decades of predecessors could not remains Jakarta's most persistent architectural question.
Located at 6.15S, 106.85E in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta - the former site of Jakarta's old international airport. The construction site is identifiable from altitude by its position in the Kemayoran development zone between the old city (Kota Tua) to the northwest and the modern central business district to the south. Nearest major airport is Soekarno-Hatta International (WIII), approximately 22 km west-northwest. Halim Perdanakusuma Airport (WIHH) is about 12 km south-southeast. The Monas national monument is visible roughly 3 km to the south.