ABSTRACT
With its monumental scale, its use of axial symmetry, its obus-shaped
cupolas, and its Africanizing decoration, the Belgian Congo pavilion at the Paris
International Colonial Exposition of 1931, designed by architect Henri Lacoste
(1885-1968), presents itself at first sight as a striking example of what the
architectural historian Jean-Claude Vigato has referred to as ‘the colonising of
the vocabulary of exotic architecture through the architectural principles of the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts’.1 Describing it as an ‘overblown and regularized hut’,
Vigato proved very critical of the project.2 His critique is echoed in a statement
by Paul Greenhalgh who, in his historical survey of World’s Fairs, labelled it as an
example of ‘mock African’ exhibition architecture, that only serves as a stage set
conceived ‘to mentally transport the visitor away from Europe’ and in his view
lacks all ‘serious architectural considerations’.3
