Some places become famous because of their history. Others because of their architecture.
Bukit Rhema became famous because it looks like a giant chicken.
Perched on a hill in central Java, Indonesia, the massive concrete building has a rounded body, a bright white exterior and an enormous bird’s head complete with a crown. It’s impossible to look at it without wondering who approved the blueprints — or whether anyone did.
To be fair, the nickname wasn’t part of the plan. Despite what millions of Instagram photos and travel blogs will tell you, Bukit Rhema was never designed to be a chicken. Its creator, Indonesian Christian Daniel Alamsjah, intended it to resemble a dove, inspired by a dream he said God gave him in the late 1980s. When he later visited the hills overlooking Borobudur — home to one of the world’s largest Buddhist temples — he believed he’d found the exact location from that vision.
Alamsjah envisioned an interfaith prayer center where Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and people of other faiths could gather for prayer, rest and reconciliation. In Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation — that was an unusually ambitious idea.
It was also an expensive one.
After construction begain in 1992, funding quickly dried up and Bukit Rhema sat unfinished for years. The jungle slowly crept in, curious travelers discovered it and the building earned a second identity online as the “Chicken Church” because, well… look at it.
Honestly, nobody can be blamed for making that connection.
Instead of fading into obscurity, the building found a second life. Travelers began making the climb for panoramic views from the bird’s crown, filmmakers featured it in the hit Indonesian movie Ada Apa dengan Cinta? 2 and social media transformed the abandoned prayer house into one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.
Today, Bukit Rhema is no longer abandoned. The building has been restored as a tourist destination, complete with prayer spaces, exhibits about its unusual history and even an observation deck inside the bird’s head.
