Imagining the Post-Colonial and Post-Genocidal Nation in the National Museum of Rwanda, Butare

This article focuses on the history of one particular institution: the National Museum of Rwanda in Butare. Built between 1987 and 1989 by the Belgian architect Lode Van Pee, funded by the Belgian government, and gifted by King Baudouin of Belgium to then–Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, this museum was designed to house the ever-expanding collection of the Institut National de Recherche Scientifique, in itself a research body rooted in the colonial past. This article traces the origins of the museum and discusses the transitions that its displays and objects have undergone in a postcolonial and post-genocidal Rwandan context.