Traversing the Monumental and the Vernacular

Abstract

Instead of activating culture, the museums exist in Hanoi, Vietnam as a political tool that propagates the Communist Party’s ideals. Most major museums, which are dressed in cavernous and colossal architecture, are politically affiliated, including Ho Chi Minh Museum, Military History Museum, Police History Museum, Air Force, and Air Defense Museum. The thesis questions how architecture can negate the concept of the museum as institutional indoctrination and reclaim the art museum as a public cultural amenity. The new museum inserts itself in the middle scale between the monument and the vernacular, exists as an intermediary between the institution and the residence. It is an institutional program cross-dressing in vernacular architecture language. The building will be a Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, situated on the same block as the monumental Soviet Friendship Palace, surrounded by political institutions such as the Hanoi Police Headquarter, the Ministry of Public Safety, and the Museum of Police History. Externally, the museum responds to its context, camouflaging its monumentality in the scale of the residential context. Internally, the experience provokes the spatial quality of the typical tube house residence – the most representative typology of Vietnamese modern dwellings. The new modern art museum aims to be educational, inclusive, and participatory: the program includes not only the exhibition and gallery wing but also an education wing with workshops, studios, classrooms, and an art library.