Architecture and cities are central in the construction of identities, of tangible and intangible cultures, both practically and symbolically. Thus, Territory and Society are involved in a bilateral relationship of mutual generation and processing.
Spatial structures are the basis of the creation and metamorphosis of urban specificities. These identities have developed preferentially in cities since the industrial revolution in the West, and from the modernizations of the second half of the nineteenth and twentieth century in Asia.
Asian cities are now home to nearly half of urban dwellers worldwide and have become, in the last twenty years, the centre of world urban growth. Economic globalisation has imposed, at the same time, the rise of spatial uniformity and the subsequent destabilization of several thousand-year-old cultural identities.
For these reasons a deep cultural, morphological and typological knowledge is strategic to understand the fundamental forms and interactions of national spatial cultures, popular as well as professional. In parallel, a permanent contemporary updating, an innovative and in-depth knowledge of spatial know-how and culture is crucial in the field of architectural practice to cope with the destructive effects of a globalized market subculture.
To address this challenge, the modernization of spatial cultures in some turning points of the twentieth century is retrospectively examined, through the situation and contributions of an exemplary Asian country, Vietnam.
The identification of the central character - both theoretically and operationally - of the relationship between tradition and modernity, between endogenous and exogenous cultures, has always constituted the heart of architectural and urban culture fabrication.
To analyze this important historical development, we should consider successively three key moments articulated in time, crossing the study of cities with that of architects.
Vietnamese syncretic architecture (1930)
Architecture, as an endogenous profession, emerged in Vietnam as early as in Tokyo and Shanghai, with the foundation in Hanoi of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (1924). This creation was already the result of a local syncretic pathway merging occident (French) and orient (Viet) cultures, developed by the intelligentsia of the two countries. This movement started as early as the XIX century with crossover intellectuals like Petrus Truong Vinh Ky (1837-1898) and Jules Boissière (1863-1897) and developed with greater impetus in connection with the artistic, literati and political avant-garde of the 20’s and the 30’s. This peculiar emergence in a colonially controlled context can be pointed out and exemplified in the dialogic figure of Ernest Hébrard and Nguyen Cao Luyen.
On one side, Hébrard represents the legacy of neo-classical French universalism – he was also one of the founding member of modern urbanism (SFU, 1911) – and on the other a convinced supporter of the necessity to break European universalism to fertilize the new, globalized architecture with three thousand years of Asian spatial culture, not just theatrically but living and working on this continent.
This is the profound meaning of Hébrard’s Plan Directeur of Hanoi (1924) where he combines Asian and Western urban neighbourhoods in an aggregative model with the help of a strong hierarchical urban network of avenues, boulevards and roads. This is also particularly evident in his syncretic chef-d’oeuvre: the History Museum, where he tried to establish a refined synthesis between the emerging western Modern Movement and the traditional science of space exemplified for him in the masterpiece of the Community Hall of Bang hamlet, near Hanoi.
On the other side, Nguyen Cao Luyen, a brilliant professional, who was convinced that national pride can develop powerfully only by incorporating occidental modernity with endogenous culture, in both scholastic (Community Halls, Pagodas) and popular structures (garden-houses, shop houses). In this point of view, the traditional lifestyles, the land (mountains and rivers) and nature are seen and used as materials and as deep routed sources of a syncretic and holistic project.
The Vietnamese avant-garde structure itself is both nationalist and open minded. Their scope was definitely to actualize the spatial tradition. Their motto was: “one hundred times better to be cosmopolites than colonized.”
This is epitomized in Nguyen Cao Luyen’s urban project for Hanoi : the sandbank quarter (1937), ruled by Vietnamese Anh Sang (light) League, first dealt with social dwelling and offered a concrete solution for popular habitat.
In this phase of endogenization, the Indochina style emerged (1930), developed first by the French architects (Hébrard, Kruze) but soon overtaken by the first generation of Vietnamese architects (Nguyen Cao Luyen, Hoang Nhu Thiep, Ngo Huy Quynh) who disseminated it from public buildings to domestic villas and more popular dwellings.
This two-sided movement which merges Eastern and Western cultures is not just a celebration of national identity in a modern expression, but instead corresponds to an international interconnected quest. It can be observed on the western side in the remarkable works of Edwin Lutyens in India, Maclaine Pont in Indonesia and Franck Lloyd Wright and Anthony Raymond in Japan, to name the most well known.
Vietnamese contextual architecture (1960)
A long war of twenty years (1955-1975) separated the country and Vietnamese architecture into two parts.
The north developed a rurally oriented spatial plans and collective neighbourhoods (Khu The Thap) with the adaptation of occidental prefabrication. Those repetitive and simplified patterns were softened by the experimentation and contextualization spirit maintained by the Vietnamese architects in spite of economic austerity and blocs.
Then, reunification marked the return to a more profound relation with history and geography and to the actualization of traditional archetypes, as was brilliantly revisited in the Nam Dinh Museum by Nguyen Cao Luyen, in 1976.
In the south, the Vietnamese translation of the Tropicalist Movement took place, led by a new generation of architects trained abroad and conducted by the architect Ngo Viet Thu. They built their vision of a modern city of the monsoons in official buildings, in shops (the most advanced commercial roads and quarters of Southeast Asian cities at that time), and in detached impressive villas.
Parallels and convergences can be established in the same period of time with the exceptional work of Vann Molyvann in Cambodia, and that of Charles Correa and Balkrisna Doshi in India; Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka; Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Luis Barragan, Raul Villanueva, João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Roberto Burle Marx in South America.
Emergence of Vietnamese dialogic architecture (1990)
In the Doi Moi era, from north to south, a double movement of interlacing was developing.
On the one hand, the rise of more diversified Vietnamese town planning gradually develops. This enhances the range of urban fabrics, the typological and spatial models, interweaving the endogenous and exogenous experiences: open blocks, urban buildings, townhouses, shophouses, rowhouses, terrace houses, villas, walkway buildings, courtyard blocs, and high rise eco-towers. Respect is growing for urban continuity, the enhancement and diversity of public space, and the development of cities friendly to walkers and public transport.
On the other hand, the intense involvement of family self-developers still produces a large percentage of the cities. They mainly adapt the generic shophouse type to a wide range of expressions: traditional, modernist, vertical, neoclassical, eclectic, baroque, historicist, deconstructionist. This form of courtyard mixed use dwelling allows high urban density, a tight individual connection to earth and sky, a modernization of traditional lifestyles and a wide range of productive activities.
Parallels can be seen in China (Dialou castle-houses (1930), Guangzhou self-developed villas (2000) and South America self-builders (arquitectura de remesas).
This diversification of the urban actors is not to be neglected. It constitutes, instead, a powerful pressure against spatial uniformity and a challenge for the professionals, who have to invent the urbanism of the XXI century, dealing more with reality, complexity and ecology all together in a holistic approach.
Also instructive, in the same direction, is the re-urbanization of the collective neighbourhoods made by their own dwellers that show us that quality space can also be done with post-urbanism. The power of long lasting spatial culture can be seen also in the Nha san movement in Hanoi, the returning to the Nha vuon model in Hue and in the suburbs of Saigon-HCMC.
The return to the use of local materials: stone, brick, wood and bamboo, by young architects like Bui Hoai Mai, Vo Truong Nghia, Pham Truong, to name a few, is an emerging sign of reinforced local identities strongly linked to specific territories, nature and values of traditional Vietnamese climatic know how (bioclimatism).
Those works sintonize with the production of other countries architects as Wang Shu in China, Kengo Kuma in Japan or Simon Velez and Marcelo Cortes in South America.
Combination and integration between spirit of time and spirit of place
Times are changing and Asian cities, architectures and identities are at a crossroad. On one side, the conservative one, technocrats and developers built up ever more artificial and superficial environments that look like “The Truman Show.” In the same time new rich customers ask us for kitsch mansions like “Dallas” or a simpler “Desperate Housewife’s” American suburb house, no matter the continent or the place they live and work in the world.
On the other side, the innovative one, mayors, urban planners, architects, inhabitants create new spatial paradigms, where human quality of life, landscape, nature and cultural identity are put at the forefront.
Through three historical phases of Vietnamese spatial modernity we can find the illustration of a universal constant.
As history teaches us, whenever architects and planners develop a careful study of their own territories, of the archetypes of scholar and popular cultures, and use them as raw materials of their modern contextual projects, the identities of cities and ways of life have found themselves both updated and strengthened in their performance, their relevance and their identity.
Thus, the historical contribution of Vietnamese cities and Vietnamese spatial culture is a combination and integration between the concrete and symbolic spirit of time, with a long-lasting and sophisticated spirit of this place.
This is, also, as ethical and contextual architects, our present task.
Dr. Christian Pédelahore de Loddis
Architect & Urbanist; Professor & Researcher, Ensaplv. Paris
Vietnamese
