Modem living in the Congo: The 1958 Colonial Housing Exhibit and postwar domestic practices in the Belgian Colony

Journal of Architecture

Volumn 9, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 477-494

  Lagae, Johan ^a  

^a GHENT UNIVERSITY   (Belgium)

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EID: 39649115397     PISSN: 13602365     EISSN: 14664410     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1360236042000320332     Document Type: Review

References (38)

1. This paper addresses themes dealt with in my PhD thesis, '"Kongo zoals het is." Drie architectuurverhalen uit de Belgische kolonisatiegeschiedenis, 1920-1960' (2002) and fits into a larger research project on the Brussels World's Fair of 1958, currently being conducted in the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Ghent University (under Professor E. De Kooning and R. Devos). It is based on contemporary publications (official guides, architectural and colonial magazines, etc.) and research in the archival fund 'Expo 58' of the Belgian Federal Government Service Economy, S.M.E., Trades People and Energy (hereafter 'fund 'Expo 58', BFGSE') as well as in the personal archives of the architects involved
2. H. Heynen and A. Loeckx, 'Scenes of Ambivalence: Concluding Remarks on Architectural Patterns of Displacement', Journal of Architectural Education, 2(1998), p. 100
3. F. Flore is currently preparing a PhD thesis at the Ghent University in which these debates are discussed. For an analysis of the debates occurring at the time of the Expo 58, see F. Flore and M. De Kooning, 'The Representation of Modern Domesticity in the Belgian Section of the Brussels World's Fair of 1958', Journal of Design History, 4 (2003), pp. 319-340
4. For a broader survey, see J. Lagae, 'In search of a "comme chez soi". The ideal colonial house in the Congo (1885-1960)' in J.L. Vellut (ed.), Itinéraires croisés de la modernité. Congo belge (1920-1950) (Tervuren/Paris, CEDAF/L'Harmattan, 2001), pp. 239-282
5. The work of Claude Laurens, a rare example of genuine tropical modernism along the lines of Brazilian modernism in the Congo, was one of the few oeuvres to gain international acclaim. See J. Lagae and D. Laurens, Claude Laurens. Architecture. Projets et réalisations 1934-1971 (Ghent, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University, 2001)
6. A classic reference for this design approach remains Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone (New York, Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1956). The Belgian architectural magazine Rythme published a seminal contribution on the topic, written by the British expert G.A. Atkinson: 'Construire sous les tropiques', 6 (1950), pp. 33-45
7. I am referring to the notion of 'environmental control' as defined by A.D. King in Colonial Urban Development. Culture, Social Power and Environment (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976)
8. See also A.D. King, The Bungalow. The Production of a Global Culture (London, Routlegde & Kegan Paul, 1984)
9. A good example of such almost exclusively functionalist discourse is Claude Laurens' text, 'Vers une nouvelle architecture au Congo Belge' that appeared in La Revue Congolaise du Bâtiment et de l'Industrie, 7 (1953), pp. 7-13
10. Domestic servants in the Belgian Congo were almost exclusively male. During the interwar period, the capability of African girls to become 'good' servants, was often questioned in contributions on the topic in colonial manuals or magazines. See, for instance, P. Coppens, 'Le Monde des Boys' in Veillées Congolaises, (Brussels, Ed. Louis, 1936), pp. 21-23. This attitude would change after the war, when more and more African girls were used as nannies
11. For some general comments on this topic in African history, see Karen Tranberg Hansen (ed.), African Encounters with Domesticity (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1992), with a contribution on the Belgian Congo by Nancy Rose Hunt that deals with a very particular context in which the exclusively male nature of domestic servants was questioned. I am grateful to H. Heynen for pointing out this reference
12. M. Lwamba Bilonda, Histoire de l'Onomastique d'avenues et de places publiques de la ville de Lubumbashi de 1910 à nos jours (Lubumbashi, UNILU, 2001), p. 28
13. See also M. Kalaba. 'La multi-transculturation', Cahiers Zaïrois d'Etudes Politiques et Sociales, 9 (1988), pp. 116-142, p. 130
14. Monique Eleb has done ground-breaking research in this domain: see, for instance, the chapter 'Loger les domestiques' in M. Eleb and A. Debarre, L'invention de l'habitation moderne. Paris 1880-1914 (Bruxelles/Paris, AAM/Hazan, 1995)
15. J. Delhaye, L'appartement d'aujourd'hui (Liège, Ed. Desoer, [1946]), pp. 108-109
16. R. Wolff, 'L'évolution de l'habitat européen en Afrique tropicale et son incidence sur l'habitat africaine', La Revue Coloniale Belge, 252 (1956), pp. 215-218
17. On the Cubex kitchen, see a.o. A. van Caudenberg and H. Heynen, 'The Rational Kitchen in the Interwar Period in Belgium: Discourses and Realities', Home Cultures, 1(2004), pp. 23-49
18. C. Van Nueten, 'Comment construirons-nous notre maison au Congo?', Bulletin de l'Union des Femmes Coloniales, 4 (1954), pp. 18-20
19. For statistics on the presence of women in the Congo, see J.L. Vellut (ed.), Femmes coloniales au Congo belge (Louvain-la-Neuve, Centre d'Histoire de l'Afrique, 1987)
20. The every-day reality of intimate relationships between colonisers and colonised in the former Belgian colony is a topic that has not yet received much scholarly attention. For a recent, introductory discussion from a colonisers' point of view, see L. Jeurissen, 'Les ambitions du colonialisme belge pour la "race mulâtre" (1918-1940)', Revue belge d'histoire contemporaine, 3-4 (2002), pp. 497-535
21. For an African eye-witness account on the topic, see Kalulu Levi, 'Témoignage d'un ancien domestique' in V. Sizaire (ed.), Ukumbusho (souvenir). Mémoires de Lubumbashi: Images, Objets, Paroles (Paris, L'Harmattan, 2001), pp. 143-146
22. The debate within the Association, as it appears in its magazine Le matériel colonial, is extensively discussed in J. Lagae, 'In search of a "comme chez soi"', op. cit
23. J.M. Jensen, Le matériel colonial, 15 (1921), p. 439
24. Apart from the Rapport Général de l'Exposition Internationale des Arts et des Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. Paris 1937 (vol. 9, pp. 106-11)
25. an insightful contemporary comment on the 1937 Congo pavilion is G.D. Périer, 'Le Pavillon du Congo', Les Beaux-Arts, 251 (1937), pp. 63-64
26. Manuel du Voyageur et du Résident au Congo (Brussels, Société d'Etudes Coloniales, 1900), vol. 2, p. 48
27. J. Stiénon, 'L'Architecte au Congo Belge', La Revue Congolaise du Bâtiment et de l'Industrie, 10 (1953), pp. 22-24
28. 'Maison coloniale pour blancs', la Maison, 7 (1958), p. 267
29. E. Henvaux, 'Les chances de l'architecture au Congo', La Maison, 6 (1951), pp. 216-219, 223. All three locations mentioned are middle and upper class, garden city-like residential areas, the first situated on the Belgian coast, the other two in the vicinity of Brussels
30. See, for instance, the 1900 edition of the Manuel du Voyageur, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 47
31. On the colonial immigration policy of the Belgian government, see V. Foutry, 'Belgisch-Kongo tijdens het Interbellum: een immigratiebeleid gericht op sociale controle', Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 3-4 (1984), pp. 461-448
32. 'De l'habitation', Bulletin de l'UFC, 4 (1953), p. 14
33. C. Van Nueten, 'Comment construirons-nous notre maison au Congo', op. cit., p. 20
34. For information on this kind of furniture, see M. De Kooning et al. (ed.), Alfred Hendrickx and het fifties-meubel in België (Sint-Niklaas, Openbaar Kunstbezit Vlaanderen, 2000)
35. La Femme au Congo. Conseils aux partantes (Brussels, UFC and Ministry of Colonies, 1956), p. 58
36. See P. Halen, Le petit Belge a vu grand. Une Littérature coloniale (Brussels, Ed. Labor, 1993), pp. 296-302 and 344-348
37. E. Coart, Vanneries et Tissages Congolaises (Brussels, Ed. de la Renaissance d'Occident, 1926). In the preface, it was argued that this book constituted an excellent approach to a 'revival' of local craft
38. Bulletin de l'UFC, 4 (1952), pp. 28-29