Vietnamese Modernist Houses

Modernist Architecture in Vietnam

A long local evolution of modernist design of houses

Mel Schenck 22 July 2008

Vietnamese Modernist Houses

• In the standard narrow Vietnamese city townhouse, the house is all front elevation.

• There is little opportunity to add spatial variation -- the design opportunity is the front facade.

Mel Schenck -- 22 July 2008 -- page 2


• These houses are long and narrow. Since they usually abut houses on each side and rear, there are no windows on three sides.

• The only other design opportunities are the roof tops and the interior.



• In southern Vietnam, Vietnamese architects like to experiment with materials, colors, textures, lines, patterns, and forms.



• The Vietnamese architects have an innate sense of graphic design

• They design very abstract compositions

• Some abstract compositions complement the interior needs, like with this house.



• Some house facades are a little too graphic.



• Some Vietnamese architects manage to add spatial variety to the otherwise flat facade.



• Other architects managed to provide some form by setting back blocks from the street.



• Other designs provide a pattern on the flat facade.



• Sometimes it just doesn’t work well, but the experiment in itself is interesting, since this one looks a bit like my house in San Francisco.



• Not all southern Vietnamese houses are modernist, although a much higher percentage are than in western countries.

• There are also the usual historicist monstrosities.



• There is a long history of modernist architecture for houses in Vietnam

• This photo was taken in 1972 of a modernist house in Saigon, probably built in the 60s.



• This photo taken in 1972 shows the typical Saigon townhouse block.



• Also taken in 1972, this photo illustrates the attention to detail that contributes to the long evolution of modernist house design in Vietnam.



• This old HCMC house, probably built in the 70s or 80s, exemplifies the stylistic elements of that period -- fine detail and filigree.

• Modernist houses of this period used an exposed aggregate in the plaster surfaces for texture.


Vietnamese Modernist Houses• This old house in HCMC is perhaps

a little overdone, but displays imaginative choices.


Vietnamese Modernist Houses• Meanwhile in the Mekong Delta,

designers evolved this colorful patterned modernist style.


Vietnamese Modernist Houses• This Mekong Delta house exhibits a

less colorful but patterned variation of the delta modernist style


Vietnamese Modernist Houses• This Mekong Delta house in My

Tho is an urban variation of the preceding country houses, with Art Deco touches.Mel Schenck -- 22 July 2008 -- page 19

In central Vietnam, the country houses are simpler in form but more colorful and patterned.

Vietnamese Modernist HousesMel Schenck -- 22 July 2008 -- page 20

Vietnamese Modernist Houses• These urban houses in Quy Nhơn

are not as colorful, but display interesting modernist details.



• Design is about making choices -- choices about materials, textures, colors, lines, patterns, form.

• This is a very simple house, but complex choices were made about each design element that kept this design simple and well-integrated.


Vietnamese Modernist Houses• It is difficult to say why these

decisions were made, and by whom, but the result is very intelligent.



•Sometimes the choices made are very artistic.


The choices become more difficult as the scale increases to larger buildings.


Vietnamese architects are now extending their unique use of modernist architecture to larger buildings.


But modernist architecture in Vietnam began with houses, and Vietnamese architects have built a strong foundation.


Vietnamese Modernist Houses

Design

Transcript of Vietnamese Modernist Houses