Lived Remainders: The Contemporary Lives of Iron Hotels in the Congo

Abstract

This article looks at the contemporary situation of the Hotels Alimentation du Bas-Congo in Kinshasa and Mbanza Ngungu (Democratic Republic of the Congo). The distinctive iron frameworks of these colonial buildings were manufactured in Belgium between circa 1904 and 1911 and sent to the Congo to serve as hotels. I analyse the corporeal state of these remainders of early Belgian colonialism according to the evident manner in which they are entangled with their contemporary surrounds. I pursue the idea that the hybrid identities of buildings that are still very much in use are constructed in an on-going process of interaction with various human and non-human agents. Particular ways in which the former luxury hotels affect—and are affected by—the local networks in which they are embedded allows for speculation regarding what they can tell of long lives spent bearing the weight of their past.