Architecture Vietnam

It is the steel or reinforced concrete structural frame that makes modernist buildings possible

A hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The invention of the structural materials of steel and reinforced concrete in the nineteenth century allowed modernist architecture to develop in the twentieth century. Unlike classical age buildings that required massive load-bearing masonry walls, walls could be hung like curtains on the structural frame fabricated from those materials. This revolutionized architecture as modernist architects realized the freedom they now had to develop previously inconceivable forms. And the structural frame itself could be part of the design. This hotel in the neighborhood of the airport in Ho Chi MInh City is a clear expression of structure. The columns, intersecting beams, and floor slabs are the prime factor in the design, and simple screens and walls are added to the frame to accommodate the room functions. Add a bit of color and you have an interesting modernist composition.

Contemporary Vietnamese modernist architecture continues the principles of modernism developed in the golden age 1945-1975

Contemporary apartment house in Ho Chi Minh City

Our forthcoming book on Vietnamese Modernist Architecture focuses on the three decades of the golden age of Vietnamese modernism between 1945 and 1975. The principles and techniques of Vietnamese modernist architecture were developed in that period and made Vietnam an unrecognized center of architectural innovation in the world. Most importantly, the southern Vietnamese as a culture embraced modernism, and it is the vernacular architecture of the culture, especially for dwellings. This new house in the Tan Phu district of Ho Chi Minh City shows that the principles of the golden age continue today — a lightness of scale that breaks down the mass of the building, along with shading elements that respect the climate.