Royal Museum for Central Africa

Gravel crunches underfoot. Ahead, long ponds hold a pale copy of the sky, and beyond them rises a palace of cream-coloured stone. It looks like it belongs to a French king. Instead, it belongs to one of the most troubling stories in modern European history. Welcome to the Royal Museum for Central Africa, known today as the AfricaMuseum, in Tervuren, on the green eastern edge of Brussels.

First, a small surprise. You are not quite in Brussels. Tervuren is a separate town in Flemish Brabant, set against the old Sonian Forest. The long, straight avenue that brought many of you here, the Avenue de Tervuren, was laid out for King Leopold the Second. He wanted a grand road from the capital to his project. The tram still follows much of that line, through tall beech trees and past quiet villas.

The project began with an exhibition. In 1897, Brussels hosted an international exposition, and Leopold used Tervuren for its colonial section. At that time, he ruled the Congo Free State, a vast territory in Central Africa, as his personal possession. It was not a Belgian colony. It belonged to the king himself. The exhibition was designed to win public support for that venture... and to attract investors.

That exhibition carries a dark chapter that many visitors never hear about. Organisers brought Congolese men, women and children to Tervuren and displayed them in a reconstructed village in the park. Europeans came to stare at them. It was cold, and several of the visitors from the Congo fell ill. Seven of them died. They were buried near the parish church in the town, a short walk from where you are standing now.

The success of the exhibition convinced Leopold to build something permanent. He commissioned the French architect Charles Girault, who also worked on the Petit Palais in Paris. Girault designed this neoclassical palace — symmetrical, columned, crowned by a central dome. The museum opened in 1910. By then, the situation had changed. International outrage over forced labour and violence in the Congo had pushed Belgium to take the territory from the king in 1908.

That violence is the context the building was designed to hide. Under Leopold's regime, Congolese people were forced to harvest wild rubber. Villages that failed to meet quotas faced brutal punishment, including mutilation and killing. Historians debate the exact death toll, but it was enormous. For most of the twentieth century, this museum told a different story. It presented colonisation as a civilising mission, with Belgians as heroes and Africans as subjects.

That is why the museum closed in 2013 for a long and difficult renovation. It reopened in December 2018 with a new name and a new purpose. The aim was to look critically at the colonial past and to show Central Africa as a living place, not a frozen exhibit. African diaspora groups were consulted during the process. Some praised the changes. Others argued they did not go far enough. That debate continues, and it is part of the visit.

You probably entered through the modern glass pavilion, set apart from the old palace. Belgian architect Stéphane Beel designed it. From there, an underground gallery leads you to the historic building. This choice was deliberate. The architects did not want to alter Girault's protected palace, so they added the new spaces below and beside it. Walking through that tunnel, you move from the present into the colonial building.

In the underground gallery, look for a very long dugout canoe. It was carved from a single tree trunk and is large enough to carry dozens of people. It is one of the first objects many visitors meet, and it gives a sense of scale. Near the old entrance, there is also a room where colonial-era statues now stand together, removed from their original places of honour. Seeing them grouped like this changes how they look... less like monuments, more like evidence.

Now step into the great rotunda under the dome. Here is the second surprise. Look at the niches around the walls. They hold gilded statues from the colonial era, with titles that present Belgium as bringing civilisation and welfare to the Congo. These statues are part of the protected building, so they could not simply be removed. Instead, the museum placed a large contemporary work by Congolese artist Aimé Mpane at the centre. A carved head rises in the middle of the room, answering the old figures around it.

Beyond the rotunda, the galleries cover far more than history. This institution has long been a research centre too, with large collections in zoology, geology, ethnography and music. You will find masks, carved figures, musical instruments, maps, minerals and animal specimens. Newer displays focus on languages, landscapes, daily life and the people of Central Africa today. Pay attention to the labels. Many explain how an object came to Belgium — and sometimes the answer is uncomfortable.

That question of ownership is very much alive. Like many European museums, this one holds objects that were taken during colonial rule, some through violence or under pressure. Belgium has begun formal discussions with the Democratic Republic of the Congo about returning certain items. Provenance research, which means tracing the history of each object, is ongoing. So the collection you see is not fixed. It may look different on a future visit.

When you leave, take a few minutes in the park. The formal gardens follow French tradition, with ponds, clipped lawns and straight paths that point back toward the palace. Behind them, the woodland softens everything. Stand by the water and look at the façade again. You now know what it was built to celebrate, and what it was built to hide. Listen to the gravel, the birds, the distant tram... and notice how calm this place feels, and how much that calm has to carry.