Love Letters from the Mayombe Hell

“As for Agrifor itself, I'll do everything I can to stay here, but it won't be easy. A number of agents have already returned after just two or three months. […] Upon my arrival, the warehouse keeper asked if I had much luggage, as it would be a nuisance to pack everything again. ‘I will see you soon,’ he added. Agrifor is known in Boma as une sale boîte. Will I build my future here? I'm confident that within a year, I’ll be able to fulfill my dreams. But I fear that by then you will have forgotten me, mon petit chat.”
— Lontinet Gribau

In a tendentiously titled publication, The Mayumbe Hell, Anne Schreurs self-published a series of letters written by her father to her mother. The letters begin when Léon Schreurs departs for Boma in 1937, having been hired as a mechanic by Agrifor, a Belgian colonial forestry company operating in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The letters are intimate exchanges between a man and his fiancée, who are striving to maintain their long-distance relationship. Yet, beyond the corny love declarations, these letters contain rare testimonies to everyday life in a colonial logging concession, deep in the Mayombe forest.

Throughout the correspondence, Limba wood, which Agrifor harvested, is present in the ongoing struggle between machines and the centuries-old trees of the forest. While Schreurs’ personal story is focused on the everyday challenges of production, tracing the commodity chain of Limba wood links this ‘microhistory’ of a Congolese logger to a larger architectural history. After all, through a joint venture between Agrifor and the U.S. Plywood Corporation, Limba wood was transformed into a best-selling American product: Korina® plywood. Korina® became “the leading foreign blonde wood on the market […] finding its ways into homes, offices, and factories all over America”. One such home — and an early (and sponsored) use of this exotic novelty — was the Case Study House #8 by Charles and Ray Eames.

Taking cues from recent interest in 'building ecologies' and the 'reciprocal landscapes' of architecture, this paper examines Léon Schreurs’ dreams and plans, complaints and fears, observations and prejudices, to explore how exploitative labour regimes, racialized land occupations, or ecological devastations are linked to one of the most canonical pieces of modernist architecture.