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Description of  Congo Style: From Belgian Art Nouveau to African Independence (African Perspectives)

047205631X epub Congo Style presents a postcolonial approach to discussing the visual culture of two now-notorious regimes: King Leopold IIs Congo Colony and the state sites of Mobutu Sese Sekos totalitarian Zare. Readers are brought into the living remains of sites once made up of ambitious modernist architecture and art in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the total artworks of Art Nouveau to the aggrandizing sites of post-independence Kinshasa, Congo Style investigates the experiential qualities of man-made environments intended to entertain, delight, seduce, and impress. In her study of visual culture, Ruth Sacks sets out to reinstate the compelling wonder of nationalist architecture from Kinshasas post-independence era, such as the Tower of the Exchange (1974), Gcamines Tower (1977), and the artworks and exhibitions that accompanied them. While exploring post-independence nation-building, this book examines how the underlying ideology of Belgian Art Nouveau, a celebrated movement in Belgium, led to the dominating early colonial settler buildings of the ABC Hotels (circa 1908 Read more