Prince's House

The focal point of the exhibition “A Dream of Bali” is the “Prince’s House”, which presumably once belonged to a royal estate. Like temple complexes and simple farms, palace complexes in Bali comprise numerous separate smaller buildings with specific functions. For the exhibition, the richly carved original components of the house were assembled and missing elements – such as the roof covering – were added with the help of a Balinese master builder. Beyond their construction skills and artistic abilities, such specialists, known as undagi, must possess a deep understanding of the cosmological-philosophical principles that underlie Balinese architecture. Their central responsibility as architects lies in situating a building within its physical and spatial context to allow its inhabitants to live in harmony with the universe.