Officials have expressed their hope to extend their collection to include items taken to Europe during the colonial period, according to BBC. You do not currently have access to this article. In 1898 the Palace of the Colonies became the Museum of the Congo (Musée du Congo) and a permanent exhibition was installed. The National Heritage Museum, funded by the South Korean International Cooperation Agency, currently hosts 400 exhibits from all around the country that portray life and culture in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The scenography is the work of Niek Kortekaas and Johan Schelfhout. It had been called a museum that "has remained frozen in time"[2] as it showed how a museum looked like in the mid-twentieth century.

Some researchers have strong ties with the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Tracy Tansia, a Flemish parliament worker with Congolese roots, identifies two existing groups. The visitor walks along the new underground gallery then heads into the basement of the former edifice, before resurfacing on the ground floor where the permanent exhibition is housed. // var adslot0; [12], Coordinates: 50°49′51.20″N 4°31′6.59″E / 50.8308889°N 4.5184972°E / 50.8308889; 4.5184972, Ethnography, Natural History and History museum in Tervuren, Belgium, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Compagnie du chemin de fer du bas-Congo au Katanga, SPF Affaires étrangères, Commerce extérieur et Coopération au Développement, "Belgian museum faces up to its brutal colonial legacy", http://www.brusselstimes.com/opinion/8630/a-king-congo-and-a-museum, https://leading-edge.iac.gatech.edu/aaproceedings/towards-the-renewal-and-the-renovation-of-the-royal-museum-for-central-africa/, "King Leopold's ghost - Belgium's Africa museum to reopen", "Unique and priceless heritage An overview of our collections", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Royal_Museum_for_Central_Africa&oldid=973781126, Organisations based in Belgium with royal patronage, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 19 August 2020, at 05:06. In 1960, following the independence of the Congo, the museum's name was changed to its current name: the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Above: Eric Lalmand/BELGA, The small spider was found by researchers working in the Tervuren museum, which is currently closed for renovations. The construction of the visitor centre has been finalised and the works in the museum building are complete.

But how do you integrate such facilities into a space whose interior and exterior has been a protected monument since 1978 – making major changes to its look a no-no? Like most museums, it houses a research department in addition to its public exhibit department.

Belgium’s colonisation of present-day DR Congo, Africa’s third-largest country, was a system rooted in racism, based on military occupation and aimed at extracting profits from the resource-rich country. The offices and technical workshops that were housed in the museum building are moved out. Movement of the storage spaces and collections kept in the basement of the building is begun.

// adsmobileslot = googletag.defineSlot('/312997750/NEW_SITE_MOBILE_TOP_ALL', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-ad-1559116370415-0').addService(googletag.pubads()); Museum viewpoints. Restitution.

// googletag.cmd.push(function(){ There are those who played an active part in Belgium’s rule in Congo – via the church, the royal family or in a political capacity – and want to cover up the past because they’re ashamed of what happened, she says.

[3] A decade later, in 1912, a small, similar museum - the Musée africain de Namur [fr] (African Museum of Namur) - was opened in Namur. The stair-heavy building has been made fully accessible to wheelchair users, all its marble, wood, parquet floors and glass paintings restored, and its roofs repaired and insulated. After his Congo Free State was recognized by the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, King Leopold II wanted to publicise the civilizing mission and the economic opportunities available in the colony to a wider public, both in Belgium and internationally. Locals were required to meet monthly rubber collection quotas under a forced labour regime, and supervisors meted out harsh punishments to those who didn’t. Central Africa in Tervuren, just outside of It was reopened in December 2018. In the main hall Georges Hobé [fr] designed a distinctive wooden Art Nouveau structure to evoke the forest, using Bilinga wood, an African tree. As recently as 2013, when the venue closed for the €66.5 million renovations, it had none of the amenities associated with modern museums – no shop, no air-conditioned spaces for temporary exhibitions and just two toilets in the entire massive complex.

Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa, also known as the Africa Museum, reopened in 2018 in Tervuren after undergoing a major renovation. In preparation for Expo '58, in 1957 a large building was constructed to accommodate African personnel working in the exhibition: the Centre d'Accueil du Personnel Africain (CAPA). //Верхний баннер This article is also available for rental through DeepDyve.

// googletag.enableServices(); The blame is typically placed with educators. It’s at least as famous for what it doesn’t When the 1897 International Exposition was held in Brussels, a colonial section was built in Tervuren, connected to the city centre by the monumental Avenue de Tervueren.

// build(); After five years of renovations and more than a decade of debates on how it should present its extensive collection, archives and research the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren re-opens this Sunday. The Royal Museum for Central Africa or RMCA (Dutch: Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika or KMMA; French: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale or MRAC; German: Königliches Museum für Zentralafrika or KMZA), colloquially known as the Africa Museum, is an ethnography and natural history museum situated in Tervuren in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, just outside Brussels.

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French Dutch. Ghent University’s long-awaited new science museum finally makes its debut, while sublime music in Leuven and grand Art Nouveau in Brussels provide more splendid opportunities for outings this week, People treated for mental health issues in Flanders feel they don’t always get all the information they need about costs and treatment options.

In late 2013 the museum was closed to allow a major renovation of its exhibits and an extension. // fetchMarginPercent: 500,

In December of 2018, the renovated Royal Museum for Central Africa (the RMCA, which now goes by “the AfricaMuseum”), in the Brussels suburb of Tervuren, reopened its doors after a five-year-long process of renovation and reinstallation. In response to experts asking for the return of exhibits, Guido Gryseels, the Director of Africa Museum, agreed to discuss said requests “if the legitimate owner comes forward.”. Access to the museum is now through the new visitor centre, which hosts a ticket office, shop, restaurant, picnic area for children and cloakrooms. Although the Africa Museum identifies the new National Heritage Museum as a partner on its website, no official restitution requests have been made by the Congolese government.

Please check your email address / username and password and try again. More than seven years in the making, the renovation project to expand the Africa museum in Tervuren is finally shifting into higher gear. Find out more about the viewpoints of the museum. “You break something that belongs to someone else. In late 2013 the museum was closed to allow a major renovation of its exhibits and an extension. “Congo’s heritage must return one day, but this must happen in an organised way,” said Tshisekedi, according to VRT. Renovation. research on the archaeozoology of Sagalassos, Turkey). three-year renovation. You could not be signed in.