The imprint of Henry van de Velde is strong in Weimar, despite the degree to which Walter Gropius consistently belittled his role in establishing what became the Bauhaus. For better or for worse, van de Velde built his career on his ability to move between cultures, most famously acting as a conduit introducing Belgian Art Nouveau to first Paris and then Germany. Less well known is his role in the triangulating between Belgium, its colony in the Congo, and the United States in his design of the Belgian Pavilion at the World's Fair held in New York in 1939 and again in 1940, or that this building was reconstructed on the campus of Virginia Union University, which was established to educate African Americans. The Belgian Friendship Building, about which I am writing a book in collaboration with Bryan Clark Green and Katherine Kuenzli, is an example of the way in which art, economics, and politics relating to very different parts of the world intertwine in stories that can be equally about exploitation, in this case of the people and resources of the Congo, and empowerment, here of an African American educated elite and their increasing demand for equal rights, and the location of a famous European architect, almost unwittingly, between them.