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Rounded Edges: Architectural Dialogue in Ho Chi Minh City across Colonial and Postcolonial Periods

Sat, April 2, 3:00 to 5:00pm, Washington State Convention Center, Floor: 6th Floor, Room 604

Abstract

It is widely considered that there is no critical mass of architecture in a homogeneous style in Ho Chi Minh City, in contrast to Hanoi which possesses a large number of colonial-era buildings in European styles. Whereas in Hanoi a group of Vietnamese historians took the initiative to protect colonial-era buildings from wholesale destruction or alteration, in Ho Chi Minh City until recently no viable movement existed for the protection of colonial-era buildings. This paper argues that there actually exists a consistent pattern of stylistic architectural dialogue across colonial and postcolonial periods in Ho Chi Minh City, from the late nineteenth century to today. Two of the most iconic colonial-era buildings, the Central Post Office and the Opera House, have continued to exert influence on later designs. Their motifs are echoed and replicated by a number of buildings of the postcolonial era. The most salient stylistic consistency in the city is the unusually large quantity of buildings with curved, rounded corners which give long stretches of streets a unique and cogent character. Focusing on the delicate subject of the place of colonial-era architecture in the heritage politics of contemporary Vietnam, this paper argues that generations of architects across colonial and postcolonial periods were clearly inspired from existing architecture of the city, and that such influence is discernible from the material evidence of the buildings themselves, in the face of the near total absence of any direct acknowledgment of such influence.

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