Within the broader current of modern architecture, architecture is often seen as material forms, façades, and technical drawings. But for architect Phạm Phú Vinh, architecture is also a form of memory — an aesthetic language that tells the story of people and place. As the author of Poetic Significance: Sài Gòn Mid-century Modernist Architecture, he has spent years researching and surveying the hidden aesthetic layers embedded within Saigon’s mid-century modern architecture. His work is not only a research journal, but also an attempt to decode how Vietnamese architecture evolved while preserving local traces — from climate and culture to urban ways of living. Today, we invite you to explore the world of thought and research of architect Phạm Phú Vinh: a journey through history, aesthetics, and identity, revisiting Vietnamese architecture through a lens that is both scientific and deeply poetic.
If you were to introduce yourself, what would you say?
I’m Vinh. I began studying architecture in Saigon in 2016, and that was also the first time I lived in the city. During my studies, I became interested in the modern architecture of southern Vietnam in a very general sense. Riding a motorbike around Saigon was how I explored buildings, discovering many creative architectural elements such as breeze blocks, planter boxes, sun-shading fins, and so on. Every house had its own distinct composition, yet they all shared a common structure that made me realize these buildings belonged to a very special category.
Later, after publishing my book and pursuing a master’s degree in Bordeaux, France, I continued researching southern Vietnamese modern architecture and its surrounding questions, especially architectural linguistics. My first book also gave me new ideas. Beyond aesthetics, architecture also contains culture, creativity, and the relationships between these qualities. At present, I continue to research issues related to southern Vietnamese modern architecture.
So how have you studied Vietnamese vernacular architecture through the lens of architectural language?
First of all, vernacular architecture is architecture rooted in a specific context of time and space — meaning it exists within a specific geography, climate, and historical moment. It can be said that vernacular architecture is the architecture of a community, because it represents the cultural and geographical activities of a group of people.
Within a given context, people build in a certain way. That way of building is refined through long periods of experimentation. Communities decide to construct structures serving residential, commercial, agricultural, or other functions. My view of vernacular architecture is that it is a kind of model for architectural expression and construction. Vernacular architecture always relies on a prototype, a “framework” tested over generations.
For example, if I want to build a new house, I see how my grandparents built theirs and naturally follow that model. That is how culture accumulates, is tested, and becomes embedded within a community. Beyond being heritage and the result of linguistic, cultural, and technical refinement, this model is also a creative system. It resembles natural languages such as Vietnamese, English, or French.
One thing I noticed is that both Vietnamese modern architecture and so-called “non-modern” architecture — meaning architecture developed before industrialization — everywhere in the world contain creative systems remarkably similar to natural language systems. I observed something like “grammar” and “vocabulary.”
The way ordinary people compose houses resembles the way they speak, using a vocabulary and grammatical structure distilled through the worldview of individuals within a community. They create lightly, improvisationally. Yet once completed, vernacular architecture is highly complex, far from simple.
If we compare this to spoken language, we use words casually without consciously thinking about sentence structure. Yet speech is structurally very complex — relationships between subjects and verbs, links within sentences, and so forth. In reality, this is an intricate compositional activity carried out naturally. That is one of the key characteristics of vernacular architecture in general, and Vietnamese vernacular modernism in particular.
Could you elaborate on the characteristics or expressions of Vietnamese vernacular architecture?
I do not study Vietnamese vernacular architecture in general; I study vernacular modern architecture. The term itself is somewhat contradictory. But I believe Vietnamese modern architecture became a form of vernacular architecture.
When people discuss modernism, they usually refer to architecture originating in Europe, in industrialized countries. After the First and Second World Wars, there was a psychological desire to escape the old world and move toward a new one. Architects began developing and applying industrial materials — steel, glass, reinforced concrete — achievements of modern science and technology with capabilities very different from traditional materials.
Modernist architects promoted the idea that a new industrial system and a new social order should be expressed through architecture. Thus modernism emerged: architecture aimed toward a new world using new materials while rejecting excessive ornamentation. They believed the structure itself constituted the value of the building.
Modern materials existed before modernism, but architecture was not yet designed according to modernist principles. Art Deco, for instance, already used modern materials, and earlier neoclassical architecture also incorporated concrete, glass, and steel. Yet their language was not modernist.
Modernist architects were architects designing according to a modern language. Modernism originated in Europe. But when it appeared in developing countries — countries emerging from war, such as Vietnam — it became a tool for seeking new identities and expressions, much like European architects after the world wars. Vietnam, Cambodia, Brazil, and others all shared this condition.
This phenomenon is often called Regionalism. After gaining independence from colonial rule, these countries wanted to express cultural identity within modernity using modern materials while incorporating elements of local culture. In Saigon, for example, we have the General Sciences Library and the Independence Palace. This is one branch of Vietnamese modernism, itself part of the larger global movement of modern architecture — specifically the movement within newly independent postcolonial nations.
It is a fascinating branch because it experimented with industrial materials while not fully adopting an international modernist language. Instead, it developed a Vietnamese modern language, partly through cultural references and partly through adaptation to the tropical climate through ventilation systems, sun-shading devices, and rain protection. This adaptation was crucial.
However, one aspect often overlooked is that beyond the “official” branch designed by architects, there existed another branch of Vietnamese modernism that merged into vernacular architectural language — architecture of the masses. I observed that when ordinary people built houses, most adopted modernist language with industrial materials, abstract architectural components, and minimal ornamentation.
This may not apply everywhere, but generally these were abstract functional components. The reason it became vernacular is because it was not designed through the “will” of architects, but through language — through prototypes. As I said earlier, vernacular architecture already possesses a template. For example, the organization of townhouses with balconies, loggias, breeze blocks, terraces, skylights, and so on. There was a shared organizational system which people applied naturally while imprinting their own identity onto it.
For that reason, this became the expression of a vernacular activity through a new architectural language. That is why I am interested in vernacular modern architecture.
What does “modernity” mean to you beyond simply being a style?
For me, as an architect, architecture should primarily concern architecture itself — the act of composition, context, and language.
Earlier I mentioned how postcolonial nations wanted to affirm a modern image of themselves. Phnom Penh was similar through the work of Vann Molyvann, and in Vietnam there was architect Ngô Viết Thụ. These projects expressed the national aspirations of an era.
That intention is embedded within certain projects from the outset. But I think that is only one part of architecture. Context is simply the input. What matters is how designers transform those inputs into buildings. How do they compose something new from those conditions?
Modernism is precisely such a process — a creative system. Before modernism, architecture relied on rigid templates: symmetrical proportions, religious ornamentation, and fixed imagery. Modern architecture, by contrast, is architecture of components.
Concepts such as program — number of rooms, spatial organization, circulation systems — belong to modernism. Modern architecture sees buildings as machines: assemblies of interacting parts, like mechanical watches whose components cooperate together. Rooms, façades, circulation systems, horizontal and vertical movement — these all form part of a different creative system from earlier architectural traditions.
Modernism is extremely free. Buildings no longer need to obey predetermined forms, symmetry, or ornamentation. They develop organically from the brief, the context, and the architect.
The Symbolic Layer
In a scene from the film Columbus (2017), Jin and Casey stand inside the Miller House — an open-plan space with high ceilings and glass walls overlooking the garden. This symbolic spatial language has been widely adopted by modern architects.
But in southern Vietnamese architecture — particularly Apartment Block No. 12 on Võ Văn Kiệt Boulevard — we can clearly see how Vietnamese modern architecture adapted international modernist ideas. Although its façade composition may superficially resemble Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in France, architect Nguyễn Văn Hoa proposed a lighter and more climate-adapted solution through slimmer structural elements, producing a more elegant composition overall.
Vietnamese architects and builders saw compelling ideas and reinterpreted them, transforming them according to local customs and history. They did not simply copy; they translated these ideas into Vietnamese identity.
So what created the Vietnamese imprint within those designs
I do not believe that Apartment Block No. 12 directly “applied” Le Corbusier. There may be similarities in façade rhythm, but façade rhythms exist throughout modern architecture. Furthermore, Le Corbusier designed in exposed concrete — Brutalism. In Vietnam at that time, exposed concrete was uncommon because concrete was protected with cement render or terrazzo against humidity and rain.
I do not think Vietnamese modernism can simply be reduced to Le Corbusier’s influence. There were many modern architects worldwide — Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and others. Le Corbusier contributed greatly through The Modulor, his proportional system useful for design. The Bauhaus movement and Neufert standards also had major influence. Modernism contained many languages, and Le Corbusier simply became the most famous figure among them.
So we must be careful when claiming Vietnamese modern architecture was influenced by one particular architect, because such assumptions are difficult to verify.
As for what gives Vietnamese modern architecture its unique identity, I think much of it emerged naturally. First, it exists within the tropical climate of Vietnam — hot, humid, and rainy. To protect buildings and inhabitants, different design strategies were necessary: projecting roofs, sun-shading devices, ventilation screens, rain protection. Those requirements alone generated a very different architectural language.
In Europe, buildings must be airtight for winter. In Vietnam, buildings must remain breathable to avoid humidity and mold. This alone produced façades with tremendous depth. Between the completely exterior environment and the interior, the “skin” of a Vietnamese modern building contains many layers: balconies, breeze-block walls, shading roofs, and intermediary spaces.
The distance between the outside and the true interior is much greater than in temperate-climate architecture. Ventilation and sun protection generated multiple architectural layers whose shadows overlap and interact. When observing Vietnamese modern buildings, they almost dissolve inward into darkness and shadow.
Temperate modern architecture, by contrast, often feels more rigid and block-like. Yet this layering has deep roots in Vietnamese tradition. Temples and communal houses also possess profound shadow depth and gradual spatial recession. It emerged partly from practical concerns, but also from taste and aesthetics.
Another observation I made is that Vietnamese modern architecture is rhythmically dense and highly contrasting. Taste differs from person to person, but it also carries cultural traces. These factors all contribute to the distinctive identity of Vietnamese architecture.
The vernacular branch carries this Vietnamese identity even further. Given the enormous number of modern townhouses built in the mid-20th century, it is difficult to believe they were all designed by architects. More likely, homeowners worked with contractors and improvised according to their own desires.
This creative activity was spontaneous and natural, yet deeply personal and communal. Because it bypassed institutional architectural control, these buildings became even more vernacular in aesthetic terms.
In your book Poetic Significance: Sài Gòn Mid-century Modernist Architecture, you describe the work as both documentation and classification. Could you explain the aesthetic characteristics of Saigon’s modern architecture from the 1950s to the 1970s?
When I wrote the book around 2020–2021, awareness of Vietnamese modern architecture was extremely limited. There were almost no references available. Hardly anyone cared about it. Occasionally the Facebook group Vietnamese Modernist Architecture posted photographs, but overall the topic remained obscure.
I wanted to gather and systematize what I knew through observation and documentation, even though at the time I did not fully understand what exactly I was looking at. I simply knew it was something different.
One of the key characteristics was climate adaptation: systems for shading, rain protection, breeze blocks, double walls. These are features of tropical architecture generally, and Vietnamese architecture specifically. Such ideas already existed in traditional architecture, but they were now expressed differently.
Later I began developing more aesthetic interpretations. I analyzed what I call “accent anomalies” — special compositional emphases within buildings. For example, cantilever beams slightly protruding from façades, dense pergolas with closely spaced sun-shading beams, or exposed structural rhythms. These elements often exceed pure functional necessity and instead complete a visual composition according to the creator’s intention.
This is especially interesting because modern architecture traditionally rejects ornamentation. If something is purely decorative, it ceases to be modernist. Yet precisely this tension is what makes Vietnamese modern architecture vernacular: it emerged through collective, popular practice. People naturally built in this way because this became their design behavior.
Another remarkable behavior is abstraction. International modernism often played with geometry to create abstract architectural components while maintaining function. This happened extensively in Vietnam. Planter boxes, breeze blocks, shading screens, terrazzo expansion joints — all became geometric compositions.
In Saigon the language was relatively refined, while in rural areas ornamentation became more expressive and personal. Vernacular modernism is certainly a controversial concept, but it opens a new field of understanding.
I do not believe only old architecture can be vernacular. New architecture can also become vernacular. I see “vernacular” not as a category, but as a quality — a quality rooted in how individuals and communities approach architecture.
The mid-century Vietnamese townhouses and garden houses built with brick, concrete, glass, and steel were clearly modern architecture. Yet they were practiced in an intensely vernacular way through ordinary people’s natural behaviors. Therefore they are simultaneously modern and vernacular.
Today I am focusing on the linguistic characteristics of Vietnamese vernacular modern architecture and architecture in general. These characteristics strongly resemble natural language systems.
Every sentence has structure, yet each person speaks differently. Vương and I both speak Vietnamese, but our vocabulary, sentence construction, and expression differ. The same applies to architecture: a shared grammar exists, but each individual expresses it differently.
Even aesthetics could be understood as a kind of “regional accent” within architecture.
I find this fascinating. Why are these similarities so strong? What is language? Where are its limits? One argument I am developing is that architecture functions as a form of language, and that language itself may extend beyond spoken systems.
Just as someone can learn Vietnamese or English, people can also learn an “architectural language.” Ordinary people absorbed this architectural language just as children absorb spoken language. Once learned, they practiced it naturally.
That may explain why creative acts across domains — writing, speaking, designing — share structural similarities. Grammar, individual style, regional accents, compositional anomalies: these concepts apply both to natural language and to architecture. That is one of the ideas I am currently exploring.
— a conversation on linguistics —
I believe Vietnamese modern architecture, especially vernacular modern architecture, is a largely overlooked heritage. In Vietnam, when people think of heritage, they usually think of traditional architecture or colonial architecture. The concept of modern heritage barely exists, despite the historical importance of Vietnamese modernism.
It represents the beginning of an independent modern Vietnam. That alone makes it heritage.
The official branch of Vietnamese modern architecture obviously deserves preservation. Yet today buildings are preserved mainly for historical symbolism — like the Independence Palace — rather than because they are exceptional examples of modern architecture alongside many other important works.
We still have not truly seen modern architecture protected specifically because it is modern architecture.
Academically, Vietnamese vernacular modernism is also an extraordinary global phenomenon. Few other modernist traditions became so deeply vernacularized across an entire country with such density and creativity.
If we speak of identity, this architecture offers enormous potential for understanding the concept itself, because it was produced by a specific community within a specific context using an entirely new language that was immediately domesticated and localized.
That, to me, is what gives Vietnamese modern architecture — and especially vernacular modernism — its unique value.
Closing remarks
To conclude this conversation, I would like to leave readers with a question to reflect upon:
What happens when the buildings that inspire us are demolished? And if we possessed the ability to modify and adapt them to new social contexts, what would we choose to do with them?
Thank you for taking the time to read this conversation in full.