Johnny Leya will present a talk that reflects on Brussels-based architecture studio Traumnovelle’s groundbreaking installation Congolisation (2023), that was conceived and produced as part of the landmark exhibition Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy, co-curated by Sammy Baloji, Silvia Franceschini, Nikolaus Hirsch and Estelle Lecaille.
Congolisation presented a chronology of archival materials, including historical drawings, plans, articles, photographs and postcards, highlighting the influence of Congo on Belgian Architecture and early century modernism. In a display that recalled classical archival storage, the materials were presented as a counter-timeline that undermine various narratives intended to entrench subaltern visions of the “other” and, in turn, support the construction of national identity. Through Traumnovelle’s meticulous research,Congolisation ripped open a vast chasm of questions, some of which Johnny Leya will address in this special talk.
Founded in 2015 by Léone Drapeaud, Manuel León Fanjul and Johnny Leya, Brussels-based architecture studio Traumnovelle questions the relationships between architecture and politics and investigates architecture’s civic role through all forms of space-making. Ranging from constructed and paper projects, writing, exhibition design, curation, teaching and other forms of research, its practice thus uses architecture and fiction as analytical, critical and subversive tools.
Following Berlage’s warning – “To build is to serve” – Traumnovelle aims to propose spaces for the collective: contemporary agoras. Spaces to meet, gather, exchange, debate, awaken, discover, and play. Spaces which challenge the status quo and invite critical approaches and novel perceptions of architecture.
Architecture simultaneously translates and perpetuates collective narratives. These narratives are the social binders which provide sense and meaning to human enterprise and provide core values guiding collective and individual behaviours. Traumnovelle defends the standpoint that all collective narratives are constructed – and as such they should be questioned, perhaps deconstructed and redefined. Traumnovelle is committed to critical design thinking, encourages political awareness and is determined to foster ambitious, generous and inclusive world-making.
