Africa Palace: A Colonial Exhibition Palace in Tervuren, Belgium
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Belgium
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Belgian
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page12 sections
History
Africa Palace is a neoclassical palace in Tervuren, Belgium, built in 1897 by order of King Leopold II for the colonial section of the International Exposition and the first Congo Exhibition. Designed by the French architect Alfred-Philibert Aldrophe, it was created to present Belgium’s colonial interests and possessions to the public.
Origins and construction
The palace occupied the site of an earlier summer pavilion built for Prince Guillaume of Orange. Charlotte of Belgium, the widowed empress of Mexico, lived in that pavilion before it was destroyed by fire on 3 March 1879. Eighteen years later, the new building became the setting for an international exhibition directed toward Central Africa and colonial commerce.
The exhibition contained four sections displaying ethnographic objects, stuffed animals, and Congolese export products such as coffee, cacao, and tobacco. Its success led to the permanent establishment of the Museum of the Congo in 1898. The museum combined scientific work and collections with the dissemination of colonial propaganda and support for Belgium’s colonial activities.
The 1897 exhibition and its human cost
The exhibition also included a temporary copy of an African village in the palace gardens. Sixty Congolese people were compelled to live there for the duration of the event, and seven died during their stay in Belgium. This episode forms an important part of the history of the palace and of the exhibition it was built to house.
Museum use and later identity
The permanent exhibition remained in the Palace of the Colonies until 1910, when the museum moved to a larger nearby building designed by the French architect Charles Girault. The institution is now the Royal Museum for Central Africa, a Belgian museum and research institution devoted to Central Africa, also known as AfricaMuseum.
During the museum’s renovation in 2018, the former Palace of the Colonies was renamed the Africa Palace, or Palace of Africa. It remains part of the Royal Museum for Central Africa and is used for offices, storage rooms, classrooms, a reception hall, and events. The palace became a classified heritage property in 1985 and was added to the architectural heritage register in 2021.
Remains
Africa Palace is a neoclassical complex organized around a rectangular central wing and two square side wings. Its facades combine blue and white stone with white woodwork, producing a polychrome appearance. A paved esplanade and a staircase lined with Egyptian sphinxes lead toward the building. Two modern red-brick wings were later added to the northeast and southeast.
Central palace and side wings
Central wing
The central wing has seven bays, or divisions in the facade, and is dominated by a projecting three-bay central body. The entrance is preceded by a staircase and framed by flat rustication, a treatment of masonry marked by horizontal banding. Colossal-order columns, extending across more than one story, have Ionic capitals with scroll forms and garlands. They support the entablature, the horizontal architectural assembly above the columns, and a large triangular pediment.
Four further bays, two on each side of the central body, follow a similar arrangement, although flat pilasters replace the columns. The ground floor has large French doors with semicircular transoms, or windows above the doors, along with acanthus-leaf keystones and spandrels decorated with laurel leaves. Rectangular windows with crossbars occupy the upper floor.
Side wings
Each side wing has a square plan of three bays by three. Their elevations repeat the flat rustication, Ionic pilasters, entablature, projecting cornice, and balustrade of the central wing, while using different openings. In each wing, the central bay contains a small door beneath a very large arched window with projecting transoms, a molded arch, and a blue-stone keystone.
The spandrels of these central bays bear Leopold II’s monogram, formed from two symmetrically arranged letters L. The side bays contain an arched niche on the ground floor and a smooth oval cartouche, or framed ornamental panel, on the upper floor. Each cartouche is surrounded by a laurel garland and ribbons. Along the full length of the palace, a smooth entablature decorated with triglyphs, vertically grooved elements of a classical frieze, supports a strongly projecting cornice topped by a balustrade.
Exhibition structure and sculptures
Hall of the Great Cultures
Georges Hobé designed a distinctive wooden structure for the Hall of the Great Cultures during the 1897 exhibition. Built with Bilinga wood, an African tree, it was intended to evoke a Congolese forest. The structure remains associated with the rear of the palace.
After the Fight
At the end of Palace Avenue in front of the palace stands After the Fight, an animal sculpture by Charles, Viscount du Passage. It depicts a roaring deer. The sculpture had occupied the location since 1893, but the original was badly damaged by rust and frost. A bronze replica replaced it in 2010.
Civilis
Behind the palace stands a statue of Civilis, a Batavian leader who led a revolt against the Romans in AD 69. Jean-Louis Van Geel sculpted the original in Valenciennes limestone. Severe damage from weather and vandalism led to its replacement by a copy in 2013.
Nearby sites
