Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Architects are failing rural and urban areas
Our rural areas are losing their character. Our cities are threaded and fringed with dirty slums.
In the northern villages of Vinh Phuc, Thai Binh and Thanh Hoa provinces, banyan trees, wells and communal yards are giving way to tube houses that resemble exactly their ungainly counterparts in the cities.
Visitors to the country’s largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, can feast their eyes on superthin or super-distorted houses.
It’s hard to pinpoint a large, aesthetically pleasing construction in Vietnam that is designed by Vietnamese architects.
The My Dinh National Seminar Center in Hanoi was a German design, the National Assembly House also by a German joint venture GMP International GmbH – Inros Lackner, the Hanoi extension was carried out under the design of the US and South Korea firms.
Urban areas and large buildings such as the Financial Tower and Sunrise City in HCMC or Ciputra in Hanoi were designed by foreigners.
In a letter sent to the meeting of Vietnam Architecture Association in Hanoi last week, former Party General Secretary Do Muoi said there was a considerable mess in Vietnamese construction; that many houses and constructions were copying foreign styles in a sloppy way.
At the meeting, the association admitted their responsibility.
“In general, the architecture has not met construction demands. The architecture is still unplanned and lacks its own character. It has hardly proved to be modern,” said Nguyen Tan Van, chairman of the association.
Van said, “We’ve built a lot, but we were not creative and we are falling way behind international standards.
“And we show little interest in innovative architecture trends such as green architecture or energy-saving architecture.”
Van also conceded construction planning in Vietnam has never been concerned about rural areas.
As more construction is carried out the rural areas will continue to lose their culturial values.
He said the architects should be the first ones to take responsibility. Vietnam has 15,000 architects but their impact has not been strong.
We need more talented architects for this situation to change.