Completed in 1973, the V.A.R building at 9 Ho Tung Mau Street in Nguyen Thai Binh Ward, District 1, is a prominent example of Vietnamese mid-20th-century modernist architecture designed by architect Lê Văn Lắm. It not only represents the Vietnamese architectural identity in post-colonial eras, but also exemplifies its cultural autonomy.
Following colonization, Vietnam gradually developed a unique architecture style reflective of its culture: a version of modernism that contained specifically Vietnamese traits emerging to take over traditional architecture styles. Lê Văn Lắm was one of the architects that set up the foundations for the movement. He played an important role in tropicalizing modernist architecture to fit the hot and humid climate of southern Vietnam.
Along with other giants like Trần Văn Tải, Nguyễn Văn Hoa, Phạm Văn Thâng, Nguyễn Quang Nhạc, Huỳnh Kim Mãng, and Ngô Viết Thụ, Lê Văn Lắm specialized in the double-skin techniques found in Vietnamese modernist architecture. His buildings — including the headquarters of the Voice of HCMC broadcast station on Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm Street and the Library of General Science on Lý Tự Trọng Street, on which he worked as an adviser — all show substantial and excellent use of double-skin techniques. Yet the most interesting and the most intricate of Lắm's portfolio is still the "moving" double-skin of the V.A.R building at the junction between Hồ Tùng Mậu and Nguyễn Công Trứ Street.
This building deserves acknowledgement alongside the former Indochina Bank, the Independence Palace, Notre-Dame Cathedral and Bến Thành Market as Saigon’s most iconic structures. Even though the double-skin front demanded a lot of space on the modest-sized plot, Lê Văn Lắm chose to use it for its microclimate function. The building thus serves as a great example of tropical modernist architecture despite being in a crowded urban setting.
An approximately one-meter-wide buffer zone consists of curved edge-beams suspended over overhanging beams. They are vertically braced together all across the floors via a row of thin concrete bars spread across the facade. The surface between this assemblage of horizontal beams and vertical braces is where the incredible happens.