Map, TDH Bach Khoa

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Truong Dai Hoc Bach Khoa

Briefly, some history concerning Truong Dai Hoc Bach Khoa Ha Noi, or Hanoi Polytechnic University. In the period after the defeat of the French by Vietnamese national forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, in a period when Vietnam was divided into Northern and Southern Republics, North Vietnam was drawn into the economic and political sphere of the Soviet Union. In the period from 1954 through the doi moi period (~1986) the Soviet Union played a critical role in the design and finance of large scale building projects in Hanoi. One of the first of these large scale projects was the Polytechnic University. The specialists the new school would train would be those who would literally be building the new nation.
Currently it has 35,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students.

The campus is oriented along something like an enormous central courtyard.
It's bounded on the west by Giai Phong street and to south by a residential area. To the north is Dai Co Viet street, across which is Lenin Park, something like the Central Park of Hanoi. To the east (of the campus proper) is a road which is about a year old. It was once a river. Note then that this map has yet to be updated, the blue curving line which runs North-South and which is labeled Song Set (Set River) is no longer.








From William Logan’s Hanoi: Biography of a City:

The Polytechnical Institute was to have had five faculties, mainly focusing on the physical sciences, engineering, mining and metallurgy. The complex was designed by a team of Soviet architects from Gyprovuz, headed by E.S. Budnik and P. Kuznetsov, and erected by Vietnamese construction organizations with technical assistance and project management by Soviet specialists.







Construction began in 1960 and ended in 1965. Importantly this was the first experiment in using pre-fabricated concrete construction (incidentally pre-fabrication took place on site)
Its current campus was constructed between 1960-1965 and was both funded and designed by the USSR.

Dai Hoc Y, Medical University

Click on the link to the larger map for a tour of the medical university. Some news: First, buckle up for more google maps. Second, I'm going to be starting a new blog in the next couple of days which will be more text-based and academic (read:boring, JK!). It will have lit review and more thorough analysis. If you're interested in something it'll be cross referenced on the lit blog.



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Hue Pedagogical University

Hi Friends,

Today, a tour of the Hue Pedagogical University. I've been text-heavy lately so we're going to make it nice and picturey.

To begin, an apology. I don't really have any "credentials" because I was too lazy to have some made. This means that sometimes, particularly when I am in other cities, I have to skulk around and avoid guards. This is why some pictures are blurry, such as this map of the university.

Note the Y-shaped buildings, which house classrooms. The following is a tour of one of the Y's.


Exterior, main entrance
Main entrance.




Second floor

For those who haven't been to Vietnam, the concrete screens or shields which cover the outside of the buildings keep sun and rain (both of which are plentiful) out. This noticeable helps to regulate temperature while allowing air into the (originally un-airconditioned) classrooms. These concrete skins are usually prefabricated and often have some geometric decorative pattern. Note too the elaborate grilleworks above the stairs. These more decorative elements are key featured of Vietnamese Tropical Modernism. From the open verandahs on the first floor, to the shielded halls of the higher floors, it's interesting the way these buildings always have a whole interstitial layer between outside and inside. They are also very beautiful.