“Vietnamese Architecture bringing light to oblivion and loss”

The Second Monograph of the SNU_MOKCHON Lectures

The collapse of community is a problem confronted worldwide due to the climate crisis and urbanization. How can the architect offer positive contributions to these situations? The Second Monograph of the SNU-MOKCHON Lectures highlights the works of debuting Vietnamese architects, Tropical Space and H&P Architects. Faced with the intersecting issues of urbanization and climate crisis, architectural solutions found in Vietnam propose a counterpoint to Western oriented thinking. Instead of ‘erasing climate’ by joining forces with insular technologies like the air conditioner, buildings are rather opened up and exposed. Wind channels are conceived, not only for natural ventilation, but with the construction of interpersonal relations in mind, as the gaps permit interchanging sight lines, sound and circulation. Tropical Space and H&P Architects have each selected five illustrative projects, including essays and critical reviews. Their stories are evocative of an architecture of ‘origin’ that we have either forgotten or lost.

SNU_MOKCHON Lecture​

As an annually hosted lecture series inviting architects of international renown, with the objective of facilitating communication between domestic and international architecture communities, the SNU_MOKCHON lecture series has been hosted at Seoul National University since its inauguration, by virtue of a donation by Kim Jungsik (founder, Mokchon Foundation), an alumnus of Seoul National University Department of Architecture & Architectural Engineering (SNU DAAE). Its first edition in 2017 featured the architect Rafael Moneo, active in the United States and Spain. The second edition was accompanied by a drastic directional change, whereby it was decided to invite Asian architects and to establish common ground with their cultural, historical and urban situations, accompanied by the publication of monographs presenting the architect’s work. With the Chinese architect, Liu Jiakun nominated for the second edition, a lecture was held and the first SNU_MOKCHON lectures monograph was published. The second monograph focuses on the Vietnamese architects. Open lectures and conversations with students were held in 2019 and 2022 respectively with Tropical Space and H&P Architects.

CONTENTS 

PROLOGUE | The History of Vietnam and the Architecture of the Postwar Generation - Jeon Bonghee

DOCUMENT | - Jeon Bonghee

CRITIQUE | Veils, Shields, and Farmers’ Knowledge - Eytan Fichman

PART 1 Tropical Space

ESSAY | Behave, React, and Share - Nguyễn Hải Long, Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn

CRITIQUE | An Architecture Attuned to Climate, Ethics, and Origins - Baek Jin

PROJECT | 

Termitary House

Terra Cotta Studio

Cuckoo House

Premier Office

PART 2 H&P Architects

ESSAY | Shaping Structures as Naturally as Possible - Đoàn Thanh Hà, Trần Ngọc Phượng

CRITIQUE | Debt-free Architecture - Seo Hyu

PROJECT |

Brick Cave

S Space

Ngói Space

Tile Nest

PROFILE

IMAGE LIST

EDITORS

Jeon Bonghee

Jeon Bonghee is a professor of architecture at Seoul National University and graduated from the same university’s architecture department and graduate school. He was a visiting scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute from 2003 to 2004 and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at U.C. Berkeley from 2010 to 2011. He published many books on the architectural History and culture of Korea and East Asia, including 3 Bay × 3 Bay : A Ttypological Approach on Korean Architecture, Hanok and the Cultural History of Korean House, and Wood, Stone and the Korean Architectural Civilization.

John Hong 

John Hong AIA, LEED AP is an architect and professor at Seoul National University, and director of the design lab, Project : Architecture. His work bridges architecture and urbanism and converges upon the mediums of drawings, material, theory, and computation. His work has been awarded 15 American Institute of Architecture (AIA) awards, exhibited at the 2014 and 2016 Venice Biennale, and published in major media outlets such as Architectural Record, The New Yorker, and The Architectural Review. He received his master’s in Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and taught as Associate Professor of Practice there from 2007 to 2014.

Choon Choi

Choon Choi AIA/KIA, is a practicing architect and a professor at the Seoul National University, where he has taught in the design studios since 2013, with a particular focus on the intersections between history, art, and architecture. He received his Masters of Architecture from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts from U.C. Berkeley with highest honors. Prior to relocating to Seoul, he trained in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Pamplona, Spain, and he has also taught at Parsons School of Design, Columbia University, and Korea University.

AUTHORS

TROPICAL SPACE

Tropical Space was founded in 2011 by two architects—Nguyễn Hải Long and Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn. Nguyễn Hải Long graduated in 2001 with bachelor degree of architecture at University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City and completed his master degree in 2008 at the same school. Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn also obtained her bachelor degree at University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City in 2003. Living in the tropical environment, realizing the architecture could influence on how people live in harmony with their surroundings, the architects want to encourage and inspire that idea through their works. Every project starts with a response to the local climate and mitigating the effects of climate change, and design is inspired by sculptural forms and simple shapes.

H&P ARCHITECTS

Đoàn Thanh Hà and his colleague Trần Ngọc Phượng founded H&P Architects in 2009. Đoàn Thanh Hà studied architecture at Hanoi Architectural University from 1997 until 2002, and graduated with a Master’s degree in 2007. He has been a jury member of a number of international architecture competitions since 2015. Recently He received some awards sponsored by the International Union of Architects (UIA), and three ARCASIA Awards for Architecture Gold Medals in 2019, 2016 and 2015, etc.

Eytan Fichman

Eytan Fichman is an architect and educator with degrees in architecture and education from Harvard University. He spent most of his career in the Northeast of the United States, working as a practicing architect and then as a design educator at the Boston Architectural College, Rhode Island School of Design, and Roger Williams University. He has maintained a strong interest in East Asia since his student days. Since 2010 he has lived with his Vietnamese wife in Hải Phòng, at first in a small metal working village and, from then on, in a dwelling he renovated in a residential alley of the old French Quarter. Since 2011 he has taught in Hanoi Architectural University’s Advanced Training Program for Architecture, consulting for program leaders, from time to time, on the curriculum’s development. He deeply values perspectives on social and environmental sustainability and feels inspired by the synergies latent between them.

Baek Jin

Baek Jin received Master of Architecture from Yale University, and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the Pennsylvania State University and University of Tokyo and is currently a professor at Seoul National University. He is the author of Nothingness: Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space, and Architecture as the Ethics of Climate. His articles have been published in leading architectural journals such as the Architectural Research Quarterly and Journal of Architectural Education.

Seo Hyun

Professor Seo Hyun, who previously taught at Hanyang University, joined Seoul National University faculty in 2019. He received his Master’s Degree from Columbia University and Bachelor’s from Seoul National University. He has written numerous well-known books regarding architecture and urbanism, and is an active contributor to newspapers.