ETYMOLOGY

The name Lawang Sewu comes from Javanese, which means 'a thousand doors'. The name Lawang Sewu has also become a nickname, so people are able to remember it easily. In Dutch, Lawang Sewu is also called Het administratiegebouw van de Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg-Maatschappij. Initially, the Lawang Sewu building was an office owned by the Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij (NIS). The design of this building has lots of space and has around 1,000 windows that are tall and large, so they resemble "doors". There are only 928 doors in the building. Currently, Lawang Sewu is an asset owned by PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), which is used as a museum and gallery to commemorate the history of railways in Indonesia.