Kudus carving art for building decoration

Kudus is a city in Middle Java province, Indonesia. Kudus also near with Jepara city (famous with high quality ethnic carving art). Actually, Kudus more famous as cigarette city, because there are a lot of cigarette industrialists in Kudus city.

Kudus culture history influenced by foreign culture, such as Hindu, China, Persia (Islam) and Europe. I t happened for a long time. We can see Kudus culture in Kudus sculpture / carving art.

Kudus carving art commonly used in traditional building. Result from research indicated, there are some carving art motif, such as : Chinese motif – dragon, Persian / Islamic motif – Jasmine flower, Kudus motif – lotus flower and colonial motif – spiraling upward of plants, crown, vase and animals.


Kudus traditional building has unique and beautiful exterior/interior. It full with ornament and made by artist with high skill level. The design fundamental has beautiful sense and idea, but not collide with religion rules.

The building construction made as knock down, so it is so easy to take apart and set with detail and complex ornament. The inspiration came from Hindu temple with full symbols and style from Java, Gujarat, Persia, China and colonial.

The art ornament looks be one with building mother, because the creator consider a lot of elements, such as : function, structure, ritual aspect, symbol, aesthetics. So in decorative view, it can increase interesting point of the building. The exclusive of local culture in way of life from their building architecture, representative the identity from Kudus with their high carving art and traditional building.