Signs of the times: 96 Tuệ Tĩnh

I should preface this post with the observation that I've just consumed way too much rươu cao ngựa bạch (and that I've finally loaded a recent version of Vietnamese Unikey to my computer). But now we've got that out there, I want to relate what is for me the greatest and most preventablest tragedies of Hanoi today, besides the honking issue: the loss of central Hanoi's built heritage.

However problematic their colonial origins might be, few would argue that the houses, offices, and villas that were built during the French administration of Vietnam are a big part of what makes Hanoi special. Others might point to its lakes (mostly filled in now), the various varieties of bún, or that special "screw you and your mother too" attitude that can characterize interactions in this city. But for all but the most hardended advocate of "Development," the lovely old buildings sprinkled throughout Hổ Hoàn Kiếm and Hai Bà

Trưng districts are almost certainly a huge part of this city's charm. But not for long.

I live on Tuệ Tĩnh street, not far from Reunification park. Back in the (colonial) day, this area was populated by wealthy and/or influential Vietnamese, those who collaborated with the French regime or at least did an acceptable impression. And as powerful people are wont to do, they built nice houses to symbolize their power and their connection to the dominant architectural and political discourse of the time. More than fifty y

ears later, the area is still filled with the physical remains of this impulse. One of my favorite streets in the city is Triều Việt Vương, where a particular convergence of the local and the global has left us with fascinating vestiges of a hybrid Franco-Vietnamese modernism. In this context, perhaps the house at 96 Tuệ Tĩnh isn't particularly special. Yet its curves and its graceful detailing will always make it infinitely more pleasing than the six-storey glass and steel office building that will soon take its place. For that is what will happen. 98 Tuệ Tĩnh has already been sold, and as soon as the property rights of the owners of 98 Tuệ Tĩnh can be "acquired," then this building will disappear in a matter of weeks, if not days, and Hanoi will have lost another part of its built heritage. I can't help comparing this process to the sort of "development" that gutted Singapore's historical core. Yet where modern and utterly characterless Singapore was the result of conscious choices by a ruling elite committed to a certain vision of modernity, in Hanoi the same outcome will occur building by building as a thousand lovely old villas are replaced by a thousand identical and ultimately unsustainable office buildings. In some ways I prefer the Singapore version: at least there was a larger, if utterly wrongheaded vision at work. By contrast, Hanoi's lovely old buildings will be the victim a thousand cases of shortsighted greed and brided local officials. Yet whatever the vision (or lack thereof) at play, the end result will be the same: in another five years, Hanoi will have little to recommend it aside from its bún. And the honking, of course.