Royal Museum for Central Africa

The Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) is an ethnographical and natural history museum in Tervuren in the suburbs of Brussels, Belgium. It focuses mainly on Congo, Belgium's former colony. The sphere of influence however (especially regarding to biological research) extends to the whole Congo River basin, Middle Africa and East Africa. First purely intended as a colonial museum, after 1960 it became more focused on ethnography and anthropology. Like in most museums, there is a research department and a public exhibit department. Not all research is pertaining to Africa, for example the research on the archaeozoology of Sagalassos. Some researchers have strong ties with the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

Contents
1 History
2 Collections
3 Research
4 External links

History

After the Congo Free State was recognized by the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, King Leopold II decided he had to show the potential of the country in an exhibition. Economic investors had to be attracted and the public had to know this faraway country better. After considering other places, the king decided to have the exhibition in his royal estate at Tervuren. When in 1897 the World Fair was held in Brussels, a colonial section was built in Tervuren: the Palace of the Colonies. It was built by the Belgian architect Georges Hobé in Art Nouveau style, using Bilinga wood, an African tree. It displayed ethnographic objects, stuffed animals and in the "Hall of the Great Cultures" Congo's most important export products were displayed: coffee, cacao and tobacco. In the park, a copy of an African village was built, in which 60 Africans lived. The exposition was a huge success.

In 1898 the Palace of the Colonies became the Musée du Congo, and now the exhibits became permanent. It was then that the scientific research really took off. But due to the avid collecting of the scientists, the collection soon grew too large for the museum and enlargement was needed. Leopold II saw it big: he wanted not only an Africa Museum but also Chinese and Japanese pavillions, a congress centre, a World School and so forth. Tervuren became a rich suburb of Brussels. The new museum started construction in 1904 by the French architect Charles Girault in neoclassical "palace" architecture, reminiscent of Versailles, with large gardens extending into the Tervuren Forest, a part of the Forest of Soignes. It was officially opened by King Albert I in 1910 and named The Museum of the Belgian Congo. In 1952 the adjective "Royal" was added. In 1957, for Expo '58, a large building was constructed to receive African personnel: the Centre d’Accueil du Personnel Africain (CAPA). In 1960 the museum had its name changed to The Royal Museum for Central Africa.

At present, the RMCA is struggling with modernisation. Some call it "a museum of a museum", as it shows how a museum looked like in the 1960s. More importantly, it showed a biased Eurocentric Belgicist view of Congo. For example, Expo '58 still showed a harmonious Belgian-Congolian relationship, while the country stood on the brink of independence. The most recent exhibition "The Memory of Congo" (February 4, 2005 - October 9, 2005), handles about the "truth" of what happened in Belgium's colony, a very sensitive subject in Belgium. See the book 'King Leopold's Ghost' for more information. In 2002 the museum started with renovations.

Collections

The herbarium collection of the Congo Museum was transferred to that of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium in 1934.

Research

The scientific departments (together with the main collections) are housed in the Palace of the Colonies, the Stanley Pavilion and mainly in the CAPA building.

There are 4 departments:

External links

See also: Royal Museum for Central Africa, 1884, 1885, 1897, 1898, 1904, 1910, 1934, 1952, 1957