Antidote to Burnout

Color in Vietnamese modernist houses

Viet commented yesterday on my posting of 23 October 2007 entitled "Neighborhood new houses...":

I realize VNeses like to use to the secondary colors to paint thier buildings (perhaps it's due to the heat, probably it's toomuch to the eyes to use primary colors in the tropic climate).

That does seem to be generally true, but as usual there are good exceptions.  Primary colors are more often used here in Vietnam as accent colors (see my banner photo at the top of the page).  I believe that  southern Vietnamese have an innate good design sense that leads them to intelligent choices in the use of color.  Even though the background colors are usually secondary colors, they are often intense colors.  But here are a few modernist houses in Ho Chi Minh City that have used primary colors in big ways:

Every primary color including green (the plantings) are used in this house.

Large expanses of red used here as an accent color.

Strong primary colors are used here effectively to complement the strong forms.

Design Touches 8

Not all of the ideas used in modernist buildings in Ho Chi Minh City are architectural.  This very plain building is made eye-catching through the use of some simple painted graphic lines.

Many of the sides or backs of HCMC buildings are blank or have small openings.  These building owners got together to paint a pattern on the back walls of their buildings.

It is impossible to escape the utility cables in architectural photography in Saigon.

Impressive large themed cafés

In my posting about American coffeehouses a month ago, I mentioned that the stores are much smaller than Vietnamese cafés.  The design of these stores are almost always retail in nature and rarely explore themes or provide environments more comfortable than the retail setting.

There are a wide variety of levels of Vietnamese cafés, presented previously here.  The biggest surprise is the number of very large themed cafés in Ho Chi Minh City.  A great deal of design skill and care goes into making these environments, and people flock to them, especially on Sunday mornings.  Unlike American coffeehouses which are mostly take-out oriented, Vietnamese cafés are all about relaxing and socializing.  On weekdays, these gatherings are often business-related while on Saturday and Sunday mornings, they become family oriented.  In the evening, these cafés are filled with young couples.

It is hard to understand why there are very few if any of these large themed cafés in America.  Is it because Americans won't take the time to relax and socialize?  I don't think it is necessarily the economics -- land is just as expensive in Saigon as in San Francisco.  An American café like the large themed cafés in HCMC could probably charge a premium for the value of the setting provided.  There may be one or two such cafés in southern California where many overseas Vietnamese live, such as in Westminster, otherwise known as Little Saigon.  But my friends from there know of none.  And I have never seen such cafés in the Vietnamese areas of Sacramento and San Jose.  I would be happy to hear of such a café in the U.S. because I believe there could be a good market for this fresh concept in the U.S.

Here are a couple of new examples introduced to me by my friend Toàn.  They are both similarly large, but have very different settings.  Both of these cafés are in the heart of the Phú Nhuạn District of HCMC, and are easily accessible from downtown.

Trầm Café

The first is called Trầm, and it features an ancient garden theme.  Trầm is at 100 Trần Huy Liệu Street between Nguyễn Đình Chính and Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển Streets.  The frontage on the street is very narrow and nondescript -- you have to trust that there is a large café behind the narrow gate.

Behind the front gate is a narrow lane along which motorbikes are parked by the attendant.

Beyond the inner gate, the garden opens up with a "canyon" between two buildings with air-conditioned seating within. 

I prefer the outdoor garden terrace on the second level.

I would love to see a beautiful garden terrace like this at a U.S. coffeehouse.  A great deal of care and landscape design has gone into this environment.

The centerpiece of the "canyon" is the waterfall on the left, which flows to the "river" below.

This view is from the garden terrace.

The overall effect of this environment is like being able to relax at Angkor Wat, the ancient temple ruins in Cambodia.

Du Mien Café

The second café is much more modern and energetic, and also twice as expensive as most of the cafés I visit (a cà phê đá runs about 35,000 VN đồng [US$2.15]).  The Du Mien Café seems to be frequented by the nouveau rich and their families, a fast-growing segment of society in Ho Chi Minh City.  Kevin Miller, Jr. of the blog SaigonNezumi.com recommended this café to me in a posting three months ago.

The Du Mien Café is hidden away on hẻm (lane) 48 at lot 9a off a small narrow street named Hồ Biểu Chánh, close to Huỳnh Văn Bánh Street.  Motorbikes are parked with an attendant at the lane, and you walk to the entry on a side lane.

The primary structure is a three-story modernist villa with a variety of indoor air-conditioned spaces as well as terrace decks.

The villa is set within a garden with a selection of patio terraces for seating.

Landscape features include a pool

and a corner garden with waterfalls.

Light food is available at this café, but the primary focus is on coffee drinks and an extensive choice of fruit juices and sinh tố (fruit shakes or smoothees).

Modernist design ideas in Việt Nam

I have often expressed my respect for the modernist tradition practiced by Vietnamese architects in urban houses.  I believe that Vietnamese architects have explored a long history of modernist design ideas, and produce very interesting, well-designed houses.  They constantly try out new original ideas using color and layering of the structural frame skillfully.  This house in my neighborhood illustrates the basic modernist design principals used by good Vietnamese architects in houses throughout Ho Chi Minh City.

This house exhibits a spare but well-chosen use of color as well as layering of the structural planes with void elements (holes)  to provide a balanced composition.

What I cannot understand is why Vietnamese architects have not often been able to scale this ability up to larger buildings.  More often than not, Vietnamese architecture for larger buildings is heavy-handed and displays none of the inventiveness and fresh ideas designed into new houses everyday here in HCMC.  This building is a new example (just finishing construction on Nguyễn Trãi Street in District 5).

The heavy base of the building is a very dark color with no relationship whatsoever to the curtain wall of the middle floors.  The facade is bland and is devoid of any ideas.

This residential building, newly constructed on Cao Thắng Street in District 3, is also a bland building, but explores some basic modernist ideas that give it design touches to offset the blandness..

Accent colors are skillfully used around the windows to emphasize the openings and give interest to a facade that is otherwise the most common expression of this kind of construction in Viet Nam.  Layers have been added to the facade to further give depth and interest to the building.  These are very simple ideas, but are not used often enough in the larger buildings designed by Vietnamese architects.

Design Touches 7

While I am thrilled about the modernist and experimental directions of Vietnamese house architecture, I am aware that Việt Nam has a long history of modernist architecture that has a distinctive Vietnamese flavor.  Việt Nam's explorations in modernist art and architecture paralleled the evolution of modernist architecture in Europe and the Americas, whereas in most Asian countries, design has lagged the world evolution in design.

I think that the southern Vietnamese have an innate sense of design that motivates them to develop strong ideas in architecture, as well as allied arts in fashion and graphic design.

This detail from an old house in my neighborhood of TP. Hồ Chí Minh shows this spirit of experimentation in modernist design.

While the composition may not be very well resolved, the fact that the owner of this utilitarian house felt strongly enough to have such decoration applied to the house speaks to the sense of design that the Vietnamese value.

I took the following photo in 1972 because I was amazed to find modernist architecture alongside the French Colonial architecture that I expected to find in Việt Nam.

This photograph was taken recently, but this villa probably dates back to the 60s or 70s, and is unfortunately in an area that will be redeveloped soon.

Design Touches 6

Vietnamese designers are often very inventive and innovative.  They use materials in previously unused ways, and create very interesting features in places usually not treated.

This small office building on Đường (Street) Phan Xích Long in TP. Hồ Chí Minh displays a very unusual artwork etched or painted on the front window of the second and third floor.

The artwork portrays the map published by the People's Committee of TP. Hồ Chí Minh to illustrate the planned development of HCMC to the year 2020.

Design Touches 5

Continuing a series on design touches around the neighborhoods of TP. Ho Chi Minh, the following two gates are located on Phan Xich Long Street in the Phu Nhuan District.  There is a new urban neighborhood along the eastern end of this street, and these gates are new or under construction.

The first gates feature Frank Lloyd Wright patterned screens around the top of the front wall and gates.

Unfortunately, the home owner felt compelled to top this off with constantine wire, a coil of wire with razors attached along the wire coil.  Concertina wire or constantine wire was very common during the American war years in Saigon, but I am not sure yet that current security concerns in TP. Ho Chi Minh justify this kind of measure that negates the beauty of the screens.  (On the other hand, I met a citizen the other day who claimed to have had her water meter disconnected and stolen (inside the fence and gates in front of her house) during the night -- evidently water meters have value on the black market).

The second set of gates accomplish the same security purpose in a more successful understated way.

Frank Lloyd Wright chevrons are used without stealing in total his pattern.

The upraised spikes should be adequate to dissuade fence jumpers.

Design Touches 4 -- More Gates

There is an incredible diversity of design ideas expressed in the urban houses of TP. Hồ Chí Minh.  I could take hundreds of pictures every day of interesting design touches applied to these houses.  Virtually every urban house is different, and each has at least something that is either well-designed or experiments with an interesting but as yet unresolved design idea.  Here is another collection of gates that illustrate the design sensitivity of the Vietnamese metal craftsmen, owners, architects, and construction contractors in TPHCM.

The gate to this café is understated, but the remainder of the exterior enclosure on this corner wall uses color elements within the ventilation screen very well.  During business hours when the doors are opened, the café is invitingly open.

This is an older home, illustrating that craftsmen began to experiment with interesting ideas a couple of decades ago.

This is a more minimalist approach with the openings neatly cut within the two planes of the gate and the surround.

This minimalist design has just enough change in the one door to make this gate very interesting.  The use of many welded bars and small plates is unfortunately too expensive for standard western houses.

This design is not well-resolved between the gate at the ground floor and the design elements of the floors above.  The cascading design feature at the first floor balcony (second floor to Americans) is an interesting experiment.

The outside elements of this gate exhibit an extremely fine screen of bars on the diagonals, illustrating the high level of craftsmanship available in Việt Nam.  The ramps allow entry by either motorbikes or a car, and this is a common way of accommodating this access.

Design Touches 3 -- More Gates

Remember from our Design Touches 2 posting that large gates are the primary "face" to the street for the typical Vietnamese house with narrow lots in the cities.  The gates provide pedestrian and motorbike access, as well as ventilation when the gate is also the front wall of the house on the street.  Here is another collection of gates that illustrate the design sensitivity exhibited by Vietnamese architects and metal craftsmen in Hồ Chí Minh City:

This set of gates for a large villa evoke medievel times.  This is not a particularly good design, just a different set of choices.

While this set of gates is very light and modernist.  The sign "nhà bán" means "for sale".

This evokes a classical mandarin composition in a modern style,

while this is a thoroughly asymetrical design using perhaps too many techniques of iron work.

This is my favorite -- a layering of screens and diagonals, with the chevrons of the house doors in the back playing counterpoint to the verticals and diagonals of the gates.  Notice that consciously-different design decisions were made for each segment of the gates created by the diagonals.

Design Touches 2 -- Gates

This is the second in a series on design touches found around Việt Nam.  I like these design touches because they exhibit conscious decision-making.  We are so used to standard off-the-shelf solutions in the USA, so it is surprising to encounter places where it is economically possible to make design decisions and have them fabricated.

Here is a series of gates.  Almost all houses along the streets and hems of HCMC have large gates -- for pedestrian access as well as motorbikes, the standard mode of transportation in Viet Nam.  There have been few cars in Việt Nam up until a few years ago, so we will probably start seeing garages along the street (unfortunately, in my opinion).  (Interesting fact -- there is absolutely no car parking allowed along the streets of central Thành Phố (City) Hồ Chí Minh.)  The gates also provide ventilation into the ground floor when the house or shop fronts directly on the street.

This first gate is a work of art, in my opinion.  This set of doors separates two areas of a coffee shop.  Its light metal strips almost make a moiré effect.  A craftsman really put his design ideas and skills on the line for this set of doors.

This second set of gates is rather heavy-handed, but illustrates conscious design decisions nonetheless since this is not a standard solution.  My prison architect friends will recognize some of the detailing in these gates.  I like walking by this strong set of gates.

The following picture has a set of gates -- what is unusual is the wall with openings that look like windows but aren't -- this wall just separates the front yard from the street.  This house has unusually wide street frontage, so there was room to erect the wall rather than all gates.  Not great design, but an interesting idea for Việt Nam.

Finally, this set of gates doesn't need to allow ventilation to the yard beyond, so rather than fabricate plain doors, the craftsman made a bold pattern with strips of steel.  The decision to turn the ends of the diagonal strips into the adjacent strips is an excellent design choice.