Cộng đồng

The spatial configuration of the pre-colonial city of Hanoi was centred around the Imperial Citadel. The city outside the citadel walls was composed of a multitude of villages and the “market district of the 36 streets,” in reference to the commercial specificities of each of the main arteries. The typology of dwellings from this period include the ground-level rural house and the narrowly stacked row houses of two-to-three storeys.

The French colonial period influenced both the urban structure and architecture of Hanoi. Contrary to the vernacular and irregular layout of the pre-colonial city, the new developments were laid out following an orthogonal grid plan. The addition of the villa introduced a new residential typology: the colonial house, ringed by a garden and rising two storeys high, exhibited a modern or Beaux-Arts architectural design (Jaupitre and Yong-Hak, 2001).

The independence of Vietnam in 1955 ushered in a period of major upheavals: the arrival of the socialist era and war with the United States. With the Communist Party in control at all levels, communist ideology came to permeate all aspects of urban governance and production. The Party undertook a vast campaign of collectivization, and private property was banned. In line with their egalitarian doctrine, the Communist Party launched a massive construction program to create new residential neighbourhoods, or “collective zones,” the khu tap thé (KTTs). Built mostly in Hanoi’s surrounding suburbs, these slab apartment blocks counting dozens of units each initially contained common spaces to be shared by all occupants: entrances, stairwells, hallways, bathrooms, and kitchens (Pédelahore de Loddis, 2001).

At the same time, 20 years of conflict brought about the de-urbanization of the Vietnamese capital. The American bombardments sparked the exodus of city-dwellers to rural areas. The result was that between 1955 and 1975, the urban population of North Vietnam, where Hanoi is located, increased by only 0.1 to 0.2% (Tran, 2012).

Upon the country’s reunification, the government adopted a Chinese- and Soviet-inspired centrally planned economic model. In line with communist ideology, the country invested massively in rural areas, dramatically slowing the process of urbanization. From 1980 to 1990, Vietnam’s urban population grew at a meagre rate of 0.3% (Tran, 2012).

In 1986, the socio-economic reforms known as Ðổi mó’i (literally “renewal”) implemented by the Communist Party radically transformed both the capital and Vietnamese society as a whole. The centralization of political power remained, but the government’s new economic policies marked a sharp break with socialist ideology. The free market reforms opened up the country’s economy to private enterprise and foreign investment. The Ðổi mó’i thereby became the catalyst for unprecedented urban growth. At the same time, a new middle class had begun to emerge in the urban landscape. To respond to the significant housing shortage, meet the needs of the new middle class, and regulate the uncontrolled urbanization, the Vietnamese state adopted a new development strategy: the “new urban areas,” or khu đô thị mới (KDTMs). These expansive and densely populated modern settlement zones built by private or semi-public enterprises were planned around self-managing systems of technical infrastructure. The planning phase for these large-scale urban projects was launched in 1993-1994.