KXL — map mashup of Kinshasa and Bruxelles
The past of Kinshasa and Bruxelles is linked together by several decades of colonial history, when the future capital of RDC was still named after the Belgian king who more than anyone inflicted brutal suffering to the Congolese people. Today Kinshasa barely bears the trace of its former oppressors in the city’s toponymy (an exception is avenue Roi Baudoin, situated in Gombe). The city as a whole was renamed after a small village (today one of the 24 municipalities, between Lingwala and Barumbu) that pre-existed the European settlement. On the other hand, the public space in Bruxelles is filled with references to its colonial and imperialist past. The equestrian statue of Leopold II in place du Trône probably constitutes the most controversial residual of the colonial legacy and its anachronistic celebration in public space.
For a coincidence, the area that is often been referred as “Congolese neighbourhood” is not situated far from there. In the late 50s, an African House was founded nearby Porte de Namur with the purpose of accommodating students of Congolese origin. The surrounding neighbourhood faced an influx of immigrants after independence, who named it Matonge, after a notable and extremely vibrant neighbourhood of Kinshasa, known for being a major cultural and musical centre, as well as the most popular nightlife destination of the Congolese capital.
The name Matonge identifies both a neighbourhood in Kinshasa and a neighbourhood in Bruxelles, so it was used as crucial point for the map mashup. In the map above, although they have have different size and shape, the homonymous neighbourhoods coincide.
The territory of Kinshasa, like Bruxelles’, is divided into distinctive municipalities. While the road network of Bruxelles helps identifying places and locating elements of the geography of the Belgian capital, the map highlights the administrative division of Kinshasa, which disregards the patterns of urban development of Bruxelles and creates disruptions in its structure. The area know as Pentagon, which constitutes the historical core of Bruxelles is unequally fragmented between 5 different municipalities. One of the borders crosses lenghtwise place Sainte-Catherine, visible on the map, which results divided in two, with its left side belonging to the municipality of Lingwala and its right side belonging to the municipality of Kinshasa. The idea is that of reproducing at the urban scale a pattern that was typical of imperialism, where borders were the result of power games, international conferences and partitions operated with a ruler, regardless of any sort of pre-existing structures.
In colonial times urban planning was often conceived as a tool for exerting power and social control, and the rulers of Belgian Congo did not make an exception. Similar to other cities in Africa, the growth of Kinshasa was planned according to principles of spatial segregation that aimed to reinforce the hierarchy between white colonists and indigenous people. In the early 50s the “European city” mostly coincided with what today is the commune of Gombe: this was the greenest and most desirable area. Interestingly enough, the territory of Gombe, and its city centre in particular, mostly correspond to some of the areas in Bruxelles that are considered today less desirable, like Molenbeek and Quartier Nord. Ironically, if the white population in Bruxelles was concentrated in the areas enclosed by the perimeter of Gombe, they would be forced into some of the less well-off neighbourhoods of the city.
