Art Deco

The other night we were having dinner with a friend who was telling us that although her job is not super-well paid, fortune had thrown her the chance to occupy one of Kinshasa’s truly special homes. This had to be investigated, and we wasted no time in offering to take her home.

A small well-treed drive leading to a modest gate suggests nothing of what is behind: in fact the overgrown vegetation make it look like an empty plot. Once through the gate everything changes – on the one side a cluster of new houses built within the grounds of the house we had come to see, and just round the corner is huge house, a no-holds-barred piece of Art Deco architecture. For people unfamiliar with it, Art Deco was the architecture of the cinema organ, a frivolous expression of new-found freedom which the modern architecture of the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier – its puritan equivalent – had brought. It has plenty of curves, funny eyebrows over windows, and playful throwing of different window sizes and shapes on the facades. It was the architecture of the naughty twenties, the charleston and decadence. Art deco was a short-lived fad, probably because in its home in Central Europe the great crash had made building a luxury.

To return to Kinshasa. No money had been spared in making this building special. One can’t help wondering how the money was made, knowing the Congo’s fearsome past, but has to congratulate the client for choosing something more durable to invest in than wine women and song.

Everything is of the finest materials, but designed in a completely idiosyncratic way. The beautiful hardwood door, with elaborate brass fittings would look good in the Musée D’Orsay. The floors are a magnificent hardwood. The main reception room is double height, with little windows in curious places, cunning window seats, a play fireplace, fun and games everywhere.

As luck would have it we came across another astonishing building a few days later. This is perched high on a hill, and has a series of large semi-circular verandas and a flat roof from which to admire the view. It is another truly impressive example of the style. It is built of concrete, and looks incredibly solid; which is just as well because its grounds are now occupied by huddles of tiny market stalls, and the house itself now houses dozen of impoverished families. A tragic contrast with the elegant life style of its original owners.

Kinshasa probably has one of the best collections of Art Deco buildings in the world, and one can’t help thinking that it must have offered a perfect opportunity for Belgian architects to have the sort of fun they would never have been allowed to have in the native country. No conservative, Prince Charles-type townspeople to protest about the ugly monstrosity here, and the architecture offered a style innately suited to the decadence of Belgian colonial life.

Unfortunately, the top echelons of the Congolese government and society have not realised the importance of this heritage, and buildings are being demolished with increasingly regularity.

Not long ago I was at a meeting in the French Embassy which is housed in a run-down grey concrete skyscraper. The walls are chipped, the carpets frayed and the windows dirty. I couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “But we are moving,” my host said, “to a refurbished Belgian Villa.” The building is question is not Art Deco, but a very elegant Caribbean version of a grand two storey Italian country house. Kinshasa is holding its breath for the hoardings to come down and the building’s beauty to be exposed.

As part of their cultural mission, the French hope that their building restoration will set an example. More importantly they have commissioned photographs of buildings in Kinshasa of architectural importance which will be published when they open their new embassy. Hopefully this will make people think twice before demolition.

To which one can only say, Vive la France!