From the heart of downtown to the outlying suburbs, development and economic growth are transforming the landscape of Ho Chi Minh City. Recently, preservationists have raised their voices as greater tracts of architectural heritage are reduced to rubble.
City officials have responded in kind, halting high rise development and exploring paths to preservation. But as HCMC evolves, so will its needs.
Fast times, slow architecture
Vietnam’s urban landscape is transforming at hyperspeed, as new skyscrapers go up and historic structures come down. A call for thoughtful architecture.
Change is in the air. Look up, it’s hard to miss. Change is in the form of the 68-storey Bitexco Financial Tower, recently topped off and soon ready to be occupied, the tallest building in Vietnam (for now).
With its unique lotus-bud shape and its helipad jutting out of the 55th floor, it has instantly become the landmark skyscraper of HCMC.
With its unique lotus-bud shape and its helipad jutting out of the 55th floor, it has instantly become the landmark skyscraper of HCMC.
Change is on the ground, too. All over the centre of the city, historic buildings are undergoing major overhauls or awaiting demolition. Barely beyond the shadows of the Bitexco Tower, the Eden Building, once home to Givral Café and the offices of the Associated Press and NBC News, is on the verge of being torn down, its last residents staging a daily protest as they seek higher compensation for having to vacate.
Just across the square from the Eden, the landmark Rex Hotel is getting a facelift as its lower floors are being converted into a high-end luxury retail shopping centre. Up the street on Dong Khoi, the new office and retail Vincom Center, opened in April, already dominates the neighbourhood’s landscape and traffic flow.
On the one hand, much of this new development is necessary. The new realities of Vietnam demand new forms - Vietnam needs new offices, new housing, new infrastructure, new urban spaces. Lifestyle and economic shifts are transforming the physical landscape.
The country has gone from 20 percent urbanization in 1999 to 28 percent by 2008, and it’s projected to be at 45 percent by 2020.
The country has gone from 20 percent urbanization in 1999 to 28 percent by 2008, and it’s projected to be at 45 percent by 2020.
Traditional multi-generational homes are being supplanted by single-family houses or apartments as more people move away by choice or necessity. Centralized home/workspaces, such as shophouses, are giving way to the new realities of the employment market as service, manufacturing and IT industries are drawing people outside of their homes.
On the other hand, such a developer-driven environment not only runs the risk of permanently erasing cultural, historical and architecturally meaningful buildings, it also has the potential to erect works that are anonymous and contextually meaningless in their place.
It’s happened in many cities around the world. The intoxicating throes of rampant development lead to a hangover of remorse and a last-ditch effort to preserve the remaining historic relics. (Or worse, an after-the-fact attempt to replicate the forms of the past.)
Vietnam is going through that same push-and-pull of development versus preservation.
Just last month, the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City voted to ban the construction of new skyscrapers in the downtown areas of District 1 and 3.
Whether this decision will have any traction, however, remains to be seen. Hanoi voted for a similar ban last year, but recently eased the restrictions.
Just last month, the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City voted to ban the construction of new skyscrapers in the downtown areas of District 1 and 3.
Whether this decision will have any traction, however, remains to be seen. Hanoi voted for a similar ban last year, but recently eased the restrictions.
The city has also recently designated a number of sites as historic relics. As opposed to Hanoi, however, there is less existing stock to protect: the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism recently described the quarter surrounding the intersection of Hai Thuong Lan Ong and Trieu Quang Phuc streets in District 5 as the only remaining "old quarter" in the city, and warned it was under severe danger from development.
It’s challenging to strike a balance, especially when there is so much money at stake. Yet we hope developers and architects will take a farsighted approach. Looking around the world, many effective solutions are found not necessarily in preservation, but in the restoration and adaptive re-use of existing buildings.
Transforming relics for use in a modern context is a culturally sustainable approach that has worked in urban areas from New York’s SoHo (once famously threatened by destruction for an expressway across Manhattan) to Montreal’s Old Quarter to Sydney’s The Rocks. It’s been proven time and again, that historical buildings are cultural assets that attract tourism and improve the quality of life.
There are clearly some fine local examples already. To mention a couple of recent ones: L’Usine, a clothing shop and café on Dong Khoi Street, and Cuc Gach Quan, a restaurant in a renovated home on Dang Tat Street have transformed unique old spaces into highly attractive destinations for tourists and locals alike.
As for new structures, there are many worthwhile ideas in contemporary architectural thought: many academics and practitioners are advocating an architecture that is unique, site-specific and adapted to its environment. New buildings do not have to look “historical,” but ideally they should be placed in some sort of geographical, historical and cultural context.
Adapting functional design elements from historical structure - such as methods to allow for natural ventilation and shading from pre-aircon traditional Vietnamese and colonial houses - not only adds a cultural continuity, it’s also environmentally sound and more cost-effective.
Simply adapting or copying a design from another environment and bringing it to HCMC is architecturally irresponsible.
Much of HCMC’s future will be determined by high level urban planning decisions and decrees. And yet individual works of architecture have the chance to be part of the solution - or to exacerbate the degradation of the urban fabric.
While society is changing at warp speed, buildings are, by their very nature, “slow.” Consumer culture is meant to be disposable but a building is going to last for a long, long time.
Done well and responsibly, architecture can help mitigate the disorienting transformation of a changing society, and give us something to hold onto, a link to the past and a bridge to a sustainable future. A building is not just something that fills a space. It fills time as well.
On the following pages, we’ll take an architectural snapshot of contemporary HCMC, from the unique lives of its shophouses to a look at the need for environmentally sustainable architecture.
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