Cong(l)omerate

The aim is to develop an architectural typology for an embassy of the EU in Africa. It is the attempt of understanding an embassy as a neutral place - not simply as an political establishment in a host country but much more as part of its infrastructure.

>Where logic ends, Congo begins< “The genius of the cellular system [of the telecommunications industry] is the division of a city into small cells. This allows extensive frequency reuse across a city, so that millions of people can use cell phones simultaneously.” It seems as if the understanding of the technological concept of telecommunication provider is a necessity in order to understand how these cities function. Kinshasa and Brazzaville are conglomerates of smallest organisational units or aggregations of interest that are constantly negotiating their intersections. As a result every top-down rethinking of the city, or any attempt of urban master planning was doomed to fail, due to the fact that nothing can compete with such flexibly evolving social infrastructure. The cities’ structure is collapsing and rebuilding itself constantly. The flexibility of infrastructure is observable in every sphere of life in the two capitals. Every unit of value, fortune and time is portioned in sizes that are considered to be useful and appropriate. A similarity in this complexity can be seen in the - now over two decades old- debate on how the European Union and its huge conglomeration of intransparent and colliding interests want to present itself on the global stage. >Logic begins , where BRA-KIN ends< By providing a mesh of urban infrastructure the two cities will be linked and a natural growth of settlements will be stimulated. The infrastructure and therefore the parts under the bridge, should be administered by both cities, whereas the housing structure is organized informally. Besides the infrastructure, the secure zones of the embassy portions are located underneath as well. Thus these portions are following the logic of an industrialised society.