Bukavu
— — five green fingers reaching into the water.
Not only on a wall.
“The city sits where five small peninsulas push out into Lake Kivu, the long lake shared with Rwanda. Bukavu was built up by Belgian colonists in the 1920s and 30s, and the older neighbourhoods still hold the low villas and the curved streets of that period. From the high ground the lake reads as a series of bays, each one quieter than the road behind it. — from the studio
Bukavu, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Bukavu is the capital of South Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, sitting at about 1,500 metres on the southern shore of Lake Kivu. The city is built across five peninsulas that reach into the lake, separated by deep bays. It faces Rusizi in Rwanda across the narrow outlet where the lake drains into the Ruzizi River. Founded as a colonial post in 1901 and known as Costermansville under Belgian administration, it now holds well over a million people and serves as the regional centre for the surrounding hills.
Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes and one of the deepest on the continent, reaching 480 metres. It carries large dissolved volumes of carbon dioxide and methane in its deep layers, a rare feature that has shaped local energy projects on both shores. The lake is shared with Rwanda along its eastern edge, and Bukavu sits where the water turns south toward the Ruzizi outlet. From the city the surface reads quiet most mornings, with small wooden boats working between the bays.
The altitude keeps Bukavu cooler than the lowland Congo. At about 1,500 metres the city has a mild tropical highland climate, with average highs in the low twenties Celsius year-round and two rainy seasons. The hills around it climb quickly toward Kahuzi-Biega National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site about thirty kilometres west, where two extinct volcanoes give the park its name and shelter a population of eastern lowland gorillas. The air at the lake edge tends to hold a thin haze in the dry months.