Image: Luca Beel. The interest of the RMCA, however, reaches far beyond the national borders. Islands, Portugal, Isle of Nordstrand, Cyprus, Surinam, India, Java, Philippines, Abyssinia, Barbary Coast, Guinea Coast, Madagascar, Republic of South Africa, Nicobar, Singapore, New Zealand, New Guinea – Papua, Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Marianas Island, New Hebrides, Samoa. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied, and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population. The Congo had a high degree of racial segregation. By the time Belgium's second king, Leopold II, was crowned, Belgian enthusiasm for colonialism had abated. Despite this particular dissonant history of Congo’s colonisation, the RMCA remains one of the most visited museums in Belgium, not least because almost every single family in Belgium counts a member who spent time in the Belgian colony. Rafael Carrera gave them the region in exchange for sixteen thousand pesos every year from the government of Guatemala. The archives of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade show the following files opened at Leopold's request in terms of possible Roughly 98% of Belgium's overseas territory was just one colony (about 76 times larger than Belgium itself) — known as the Belgian Congo. American architect Richard Neutra, for instance, mentioned that the housing schemes of the Office des Cités Africaines (OCA), providing accommodation for the ever-growing African population in Congo’s major cities, were among the most promising architectural achievements he had encountered on his African trip. In tune with practices elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, the organisation of urban form in the Belgian Congo was based from the mid-1920s onwards on the principle of spatial segregation along racial lines. After Belgium began administering the colony, it generally maintained the policies established by the Germans, including indirect rule via local Tutsi rulers, and a policy of ethnic identity cards (later retained in the Republic of Rwanda). The Congo became an independent republic on June 30, 1960. Corrections? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Updates? Walking the streets of Mbandaka in April 2015, we were reminded by local informants that Mr Patel was locally considered the bâtisseur de Mbandaka (the ‘builder’ of Mbandaka). Private European and American corporations invested heavily in the Belgian Congo after World War I. Lubumbashi urban plan showing, left, the European town and, right, the first cité indigène with the zone neutre between. ‘One can contend that to successfully “possess an empire”, one needs, first, to “have an idea of possessing an empire”. Historical map of the Belgian Congo (1908–60). A textbook application of colonial planning principles was more often than not hindered by local conditions, such as insufficient funding, complex topographies, or already existing built fabric and settlement patterns. By using our site, you agree to our use of cookies. [21], Map of Belgium's colonies at their maximum extent, Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eastern Coast of Central America Commercial and Agricultural Company, Concessions in Tianjin § Belgian concession (1902–1931), "Early Belgian Colonial Efforts: The Long and Fateful Shadow of Leopold I", "King Leopold's legacy of DR Congo violence", "New Physical, Political, Industrial and Commercial Map of Central America and the Antilles", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Belgian_colonial_empire&oldid=986289568, States and territories established in 1885, States and territories disestablished in 1962, Articles containing simplified Chinese-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, "Empire" as a description of foreign policy, This page was last edited on 30 October 2020, at 22:54. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/place/Belgian-Congo. [14] One of the results was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African "évolués" in the cities. Such ambivalences of colonial policy strikingly come to the fore in the domain of urban planning. [11], Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private company interests. An architectural competition launched in 1928 led to no result, and the project that would finally be constructed from 1956 onwards according to a classicising 1951 competition entry of architect Marcel Lambrichs, was unfinished when Congo became independent in 1960. Belgium controlled two colonies during its history, the Belgian Congo (modern DRC) from 1908 to 1960, and Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi) from 1922 to 1962. The renovated Royal Museum for Central Africa, by architect Stéphane Beel, viewed from the new reception pavilion. [18] Although Belgian companies invested in Tianjin, especially in the city's tram system, the Belgian concession remained inactive. In January 1959, riots broke out in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) after a rally was held calling for the independence of the Congo. The competition entry for a cultural centre in Kinshasa by Takamasa Yoshizaka, 1958, in Udo Kultermann, Neues Bauen in Afrika, Ernst Wasmuth Verlag, 1963. Much of this was spent on public buildings in Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp. During World War I, Congolese troops participated in offensives against German forces in the area of modern-day Rwanda and Burundi which were placed under Belgian occupation. A fine-grained network of office buildings for colonial administrations, post offices, schools and hospitals was realised, reaching even the most remote parts of a territory which, as colonial propaganda did not fail to stress time and again, measured 80 times the size of the mother country. In the years following the Boxer Rebellion, the diplomat Maurice Joostens negotiated a concession for Belgium. Belgium seems to have lacked such an idea’. Announcing our NEW encyclopedia for Kids! [1] Belgian traders also extended their influence in West Africa but this too fell apart following the Rio Nuñez Incident of 1849 and growing Anglo-French rivalry in the region. Specific parts of the Ten Year Plan’s built production met with respect from the international professional community as well. But we should not forget that modern architecture is not necessarily emancipatory in nature, especially not in a colonial context. We use cookies to personalize and improve your experience on our site. They had no role in legislation, but traditional rulers were used as agents to collect taxes and recruit labour; uncooperative rulers were deposed. In the mid-’50s, the then Minister of Colonies, for instance, was still hoping to have his administration housed in an impressive new administrative complex along the Avenue Louise, one of the capital city’s most important boulevards. The Belgian concession was proclaimed on 7 November 1900 and spanned some 100 hectares (250 acres). The official Belgian attitude was paternalism: Africans were to be cared for and trained as if they were children. En 1908, Léopold II cède l’État libre du Congo à la Belgique qui en fait une colonie - sans que cela modifie le régime d’exploitation. By Johan Lagae Along the commercial axes in various Congolese cities, one can still today read the presence of these ‘people from elsewhere’, whose societal position cannot be grasped by the essentialising dichotomy coloniser/colonised. [5], A sharp reduction of the population of the Congo through excess deaths occurred in the Free State period but estimates of the deaths toll vary considerably. Image: Johan Lagae, Seat of the provincial administration in Mbandaka, designed by Service des Travaux Publics, 1950s. In the late 19th century, Belgian engineers were employed on construction of the Beijing–Hankou Railway, leading the Belgian government to unsuccessfully claim a concession in Hankou (Hankow). It also had a small concession in China, and was a co-administrator of the Tangier International Zone in Morocco. Masterplan for the Axe du Palais du Dominion, Léopoldville, architect Georges Ricquier, 1948. [16] Belgian colonizing efforts in Guatemala ceased in 1854, due to lack of financing and high mortality due to yellow fever and malaria, endemic diseases of the tropical climate.[17]. Throughout the colonial period, the number of (Belgian) architects remained limited, a phenomenon the professional press did not fail to lament by writing that the Belgian colony was being built by des gens d’ailleurs (people from elsewhere). The Consul of Belgium and the president of the Brera Academy established a charitable foundation with the goal of building a village for artists and a hotel. Leopold achieved international recognition for the Congo Free State in 1885. Despite this particular dissonant history of Congo’s colonisation, the RMCA remains one of the most visited museums in Belgium, not least because almost every single family in Belgium counts a member who spent time in the Belgian colony. Successive governments viewed colonial expansion as economically and politically risky and fundamentally unrewarding, and believed that informal empire, continuing Belgium's booming industrial trade in South America and Russia, was much more promising. A newly designed reception pavilion and a series of underground rooms for temporary exhibitions will completely reconfigure the approach of the world-renowned collections, encompassing ethnographic artefacts, historical maps and documents, zoological species, mining resources, etc. Yet Belgium did build a lot in Congo, especially during the postwar years, when the government launched its first – and last – Ten Year Plan for the Economic and Social Development of the Belgian Congo in 1949. After a decision to erase the existing, and allegedly ‘filthy’ African settlement in 1921, the urban plan was redrawn by 1929 to introduce a zone neutre of over 700 metres, in order to protect European residential areas from the potential health threat of the cité indigène. With support from a number of Western countries who saw Leopold as a useful buffer between rival colonial powers, Leopold achieved international recognition for the Congo Free State in 1885. On 4 May 1843, the Guatemalan parliament issued a decree giving the district of Santo Tomás "in perpetuity" to the Compagnie belge de colonisation [fr], a private Belgian company under the protection of King Leopold I of Belgium. Some of their bread and butter peers, often linked to the Brussels’ real-estate milieu, were nevertheless men of talent, as the Corbusian work of Claude Laurens makes clear. Ever since the 1910s, construction work was often done by Italian builders. In the end, the urban landscape of the capital city was shaped according to a modest and pragmatic approach. Sovereignty was transferred to Belgium in 1908. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. If Leopold II understood all too well the need for a colony if his small kingdom was to occupy a place of importance on the geopolitical map of Europe, the Belgian government, who took over the Congo Free State in 1908, a year before the king’s death, showed much less enthusiasm for a colonial adventure. [13], Congolese troops participated in World War II and were instrumental in forcing the Italians out of their East African colonies during the East African Campaign. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by his nation's lack of international power and prestige, tried to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Roads, railroads, electric stations, and public buildings were constructed by forced labour. Ironically, the building immediately became the symbol of the new independent state of Congo, later Zaire, and today is still known as the Palais de la Nation. In Congo, ‘le petit belge’ indeed seemed to see things big. African resistance challenged the colonial regime from the beginning. [3] By the turn of the century, however, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and the ruthless system of economic extraction led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did in 1908, creating the Belgian Congo. [12] The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. Kansas, Isle of Pines, Cozumel, St. Bartholomew Island, Haiti, Tortugas, Faeroe This is not to say that no ambitious projects were launched. What is needed are narratives that embrace a European-African, or, better even, a truly global perspective when considering Congo’s colonial past. This was in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. In 1842, a ship sent by King Leopold I of Belgium arrived in Guatemala; the Belgians observed the natural riches of the department of Izabal and decided to settle in Santo Tomas de Castilla and build infrastructure in the region. Sandwich Islands, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, San Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Rio Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionaryand private-companyinterests. As a result, Leopold pursued his colonial ambitions without the support of the Belgian government. Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Mexico-State of Puebla, The troublesome planning and construction of Kinshasa as the new capital city of the Belgian Congo, a story that starts in the early 1920s and lasted until the eve of independence, on 30 June 1960, seems to prove their point. [12] The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (politique indigène). An investigation of the architectural and urban colonial legacy in Congo, I argue, forms a powerful tool to get beyond simplified visions of Congo’s colonial past and to write alternative histories that are allowed to question the multiple possible layers of meaning embedded in one of the main tropes of colonial literature, namely that in Congo, ‘le petit belge a vu grand’. La colonisation du Congo s'opéra durant la période comprise entre la première exploration du Congo-Kinshasa par Henry Morton Stanley (1867) jusqu'à l'annexion du pays par la prise de possession par le roi Léopold II de Belgique (1885). Trading house built by Ismail Youssuf Patel along Avenue Mundji in Mbandaka, c1950s. Since 1896, The Architectural Review has scoured the globe for architecture that challenges and inspires. Nunez, Marie – West coast of Africa, Bolivia, Columbia, Guiana, Argentina – La Plata, Their refusal led Leopold to create a state under his own personal rule. It resulted in an immense built legacy. Paraphrasing Edward Said, one can contend that to successfully ‘possess an empire’, one needs, first, to ‘have an idea of possessing an empire’. Synagogue in Lubumbashi by Raymond Cloquet, 1929. The cover of Rythme, no 11, on the Office des Cités Africaines, 1960. If the remarkable colonial built legacy clearly testifies to an incredible energy with which le petit belge tried to govern an immense territory at the heart of the African continent, then tracing the building history of particular urban sites, particularly in the capital city of Kinshasa, points to the lack of an imperial vision underlying colonial policies. In that sense they are not so far removed from the profound social engineering embedded in the design of labour camps and workers’ houses, a key topic of architectural investigation in the postwar years. It was designated as a United Nations trust territory, still under Belgian administration, until 1962, when it developed into the independent states of Rwanda and Burundi. Africans worked the mines and plantations as indentured labourers on four- to seven-year contracts, in accordance with a law passed in Belgium in 1922. Revolts and violence against Tutsi, known as the Rwandan Revolution, occurred in the events leading to independence. But nothing came, for instance, of Georges Ricquier’s 1948 urban plan for ‘le Grand Léo’, which included a monumental axis that was to surpass the Paris Champs-Elysées. This ended with the seizure of power by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. En 1908, la Chambre de… Catherine Hoskyns; Le Congo de la Colonisation Belge à l'Indépendance, Lumumba's Congo: Roots of Conflict and Le Livre Noir du Congo, International Affairs, Vo colonial interest:[2]. Millions of Congolese died during this time. Housing, urban planning, education and healthcare, as well as transport infrastructure and agricultural development, counted as key focal points of the plan, which aimed at introducing a colonial variant of a welfare policy. More information on how to do this can be found in the cookie policy. Buildings old and new are chosen as prisms through which arguments and broader narratives are constructed. One of the most important landmarks of interwar architecture in Lubumbashi, for instance, is the synagogue, a brick building in Modernist lines constructed according to a 1929 design of the Belgian architect Raymond Cloquet, and commissioned by the important local Jewish community, which had arrived in Congo via Southern Africa. However, the government opted for a less prestigious solution, providing accommodation in the newly planned Cité Administrative, illustrating once more how economic and pragmatic considerations were prioritised over issues of representation. This piece is featured in the AR’s September 2018 on Belgium – click here to pick up your copy today, Many of the cultural assets of Britain were paid for by slave labour…, 045 ar 10 essay bellyoftheworld Mouth   As the roast chicken, laden with…, The urbanisation of Los Angeles racially segregated its citizens through ‘redlining’ policies,…, Shelter from the sun in urban Africa is a public resource and…. Early December 2018, the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) in Tervuren, built between 1904 and 1908 at the initiative of Leopold II, is going to re-open its doors after a long and intensive renovation process. [3], The Free State government exploited the Congo for its natural resources, first ivory and later rubber which was becoming a valuable commodity. As Herman Asselberghs and Dieter Lesage noted in their 1999 provocative plea for rethinking what they considered the ‘museum of the nation’, it is the Belgian place par excellence that embodies most effectively ‘the strangeness of our own history’. As the examples of the Lubumbashi synagogue or the trading houses built by Patel in Mbandaka indicate, our understanding of Congo’s colonial past remains quite incomplete if we stick to a framework based on exclusive Belgian-Congolese terms. There are striking parallels with Brussels. Violent altercations between Belgian forces and the Congolese also occurred later that year, and Belgium, which previously maintained that independence for the Congo would not be possible in the immediate future, suddenly capitulated and began making arrangements for the Congo’s independence. Urban plans also often met with various forms of local contestation by both Africans and intermediate figures who were crucial for sustaining local urban economies, such as Portuguese, Greek or Italian small traders. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period and these figures have been disputed by some who, like William Rubinstein, claim that the figures cited by Adam Hochschild are speculative estimates based on little evidence.[10].

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