Historic market in Kinshasa ready to reopen to a million shoppers a day after five-year makeover

Long criticised as overcrowded and filthy, the city’s Zando marketplace has had an elegant and sustainable redesign

Selling vegetables was Dieudonné Bakarani’s first job. He had a little stall at Kinshasa Central Market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Decades later, the 57-year-old entrepreneur is redeveloping the historic marketplace that gave him his start in business to be an award-winning city landmark.

Bakarani hopes to see the market, known as Zando, flourish again and reopen in February after a five-year hiatus. The design has already been recognised internationally; in December, the architects responsible for it won a Holcim Foundation award for sustainable design.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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