Given my inability to find direct evidence available in Vietnam about mid-century modernist architecture, I am not surprised that errors have already surfaced in our book "Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture." I am sure we will find more errors later, but here are three important ones known already:
1. On page 327 of the Vietnam edition of the book, the French-Vietnamese architect for the 95 Pasteur Street apartment building was listed as René Nguyễn Khắc Schéou, as cited in other works about Vietnamese modernism. However, Nghia Nguyen and Thanh Nguyen of the Facebook Vietnamese Modernist Architecture group have both determined, from evidence in the National Archives, that KTS Hoàng Hùng had designed this building.
2. On page 208 of the book, we listed Ngô Viết Thụ as the design architect for the University of Medicine and Pharmacy. Thanh Nguyen found paper evidence that a team of five Vietnamese architects assisted with the design. Although unnamed, three of the architects have been identified as Ngô Viết Thụ, Bùi Quang Hanh and possibly Lê Văn Lắm.
3. On page 162, the prominent Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann is named as the designer of the Embassy for Cambodia at what is now 185 Cách Mạng Tháng Tám Street. Nguyễn Ngọc Sơn has now found significant evidence that Vietnamese architect Hoàng Hùng was responsible for this design.
The best news here is that Vietnamese researchers are now combing through the National Archives and other sources to prove the facts of the development of mid-century Vietnamese modernist architecture.
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