Barun Roy: Vietnam's storeyed future

After Singapore and China, Vietnam prepares itself to see more post-modern architectural landmarks dot its landscape

Singapore gave it to China, a passion for modernist transformation that has totally changed the face of the island republic and is now reshaping the Chinese landscape, like a new picture painted on an earlier canvas. That bug seems now to have smitten Vietnam, where the urge for a similar modernist reincarnation is getting stronger.

Several things happened last October that prove the country has set its mind on a dramatic image makeover. First, Phase 1 of Yen So Park, a major urban redevelopment project being executed by Malaysia’s Gamuda Land, was unveiled in Hanoi to coincide with the city’s 1,000th birth anniversary.

 

Second, tenants started moving into what, as of now, is the tallest building in Vietnam, the 68-storey Bitexco Financial Tower in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), a glass-and-steel structure, designed like a lotus petal by the US-based architect Carlos Zapata, which soars above the still rather flat HCMC cityscape like an ambitious flight of fancy, or, one might say, a defiant wish.

Third, Foster & Partners, the famous British firm of architects that designed the spectacular Terminal 3 at the Beijing International Airport, stepped into Vietnam for the first time with a colourful ground-breaking ceremony for VietinBank Business Centre, a mixed-use, twin-tower complex (68 and 48 stories tall) that’s set to redefine the urban landscape in Hanoi.

Under pressure from rapid urbanisation, population increase and a steady accretion of wealth from a strongly growing economy, the government has concluded that Vietnam must redesign its urban landscape to develop new urban settlements and redefine existing ones; and seems to think, following Singapore’s and China’s examples, that the job is important enough to draw on global design talents, wherever they are available, and not be inhibited by narrow patriotic considerations. As Hanoi’s previous off-the-cuff experiments with town planning have proved, patchy or cosmetic renovations don’t work and only make cities more ugly and unbalanced.

As growth triggers an exceptional real estate boom and draws in foreign investors, Vietnam is going to see more post-modern architectural landmarks dot its landscape and transform its skyline. Soon to be completed in Hanoi’s new central business district is the $1.05 billion Keangnam Landmark Tower, developed by South Korea’s Keangnam Enterprise and offering 579,000 square metres of floor space in its two 47-storey residential towers and one 70-storey office tower. Another South Korean conglomerate, Lotte, is developing a $400 million, 65-storey property, called Lotte Centre Hanoi, for which the ground was also broken in October.

Taking the cue, PetroVietnam has unveiled plans for a 102-storey super-tall skyscraper, which, by 2014, will be one of the world’s tallest buildings. At least 50 more new-age skyscrapers of various heights are slated to come up all over the country, particularly in Hanoi and HCMC, in the next three-four years, changing the face of its cities forever.

The architectural transformation of Vietnam began several years ago as foreign investors, particularly from Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, started setting up hotels, shopping malls, offices and entertainment facilities. But it’s only recently that the country has begun to look skywards out of an ardent desire to change, showing a zeal that could soon make Hanoi and HCMC look like Singapore, Beijing, or Shanghai. Even five years ago, Hanoi’s central business district used to be defined by paddy fields. Today, it’s defined by a mushrooming of new construction as the rocketing demand for office and commercial space makes colonial villas and buildings unfit and impractical. The way it’s going, HCMC might end up having the biggest concentration of skyscrapers in the whole of Southeast Asia.

Is that bad? Maybe, for those who have nostalgic memories of the days when HCMC used to be called Saigon and known, perhaps dubiously, as the Paris of the East. But the fact is that Vietnam, in the cusp of rapid economic growth, has little choice.

The idea is not simply to adorn the country with stunning pieces of architecture, but also to transform the landscape and create beautiful living environments. Yen So Park in Hanoi, for example, will include an integrated lakeside township, an urban park, and a sewage treatment facility that’s going to be country’s biggest and most modern. In southwest HCMC, Hung Dien New Town, surrounded by two branches of Cho Dem River, will be a living, shopping, and business complex where new skyscrapers will rise to various heights, including two defining 81-storey mixed-use towers.

However, Vietnam will still be Vietnam. If Singapore could come to terms with its past as it transformed into a dazzling, post-modern society, in the process giving its architectural character a likeable flavour and punch, so could Vietnam. In fact, because of its history, the mix of old and new in Vietnam, in a decade or so, could be even more esoteric than Singapore’s.

rbarun@gmail.com