The long march to Saigon - City sence
Doubtless many have seen Miss Saigon and
enjoyed the performances of our talented
performers. (The musical’s cornering of
Manila’s hard-to-come-by sponsorship money
and displacement of local productions from the
Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the
Philippines are other issues altogether.) The
musical paints a dramatic picture of war-torn
Saigon and most people have the impression of
a bombed-out city that managed to survive that
conflagration by the skin of its teeth.
Well, Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it’s now officially called, is alive
and kicking. It also has conserved a good portion of its colonial and
historic fabric whilst gearing up for this new century at a pace and
focused determination that may leave Manila in the dust. (Yes, I do
have to tell yet another story of another neighbor who has gotten
their act together... so maybe we will be jolted to action ourselves.)
I have not seen Miss Saigon but my work (in landscape architecture
and planning) has brought me to Vietnam. Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City
(HCMC), as it is now called, reminded me immediately of parts of
Manila. The old center is similar to Binondo in scale and texture, the
residential districts are much like the older parts of Sampaloc and
Santa Ana, and there are people everywhere.
Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam. The capital is Hanoi in
the north but Saigon, as the city is still popularly called, is the center
of the Vietnamese economy. Thirty percent of manufacturing output
and 25 percent of retail trade of Vietnam are centered in Saigon. The
Vietnam War, one of several in Vietnam’s long history of constant
attempts at unification, ended in 1975. This was followed by a decade
of hard-line centralist economic rule. In 1986 the era of doi moi
renaissance followed.
Today, there are 76 million Vietnamese, roughly 10 percent live in and
around the 2,029 square kilometers of Saigon. Though not as old as
Hanoi in terms of being an urban center (Hanoi is the oldest capital in
Southeast Asia, having been established in 1010.), Saigon has a
settlement history that goes back about a thousand years.
Layers Of Vietnamese History
As with many of the coastal cities in Southeast Asia, Saigon is
a product of several layers of indigenous cultures and colonial
interventions – mainly from the Chinese to the Khmers, and
finally to the French. Another commonality with other colonial
cities is the presence and influence of a Chinese community
and its defined district.
The ancestors of present-day Vietnamese originally came
from southern China and intermarried with the local peoples of
Indonesian ancestry in the first millennium BC. A distinct
Vietnamese culture emerged, and despite the introduction of
Chinese culture in law, religion, art and technology (agriculture
and irrigation) the Vietnamese retained much of their own
ethnicity.
In the same first millennium, the southern part of Vietnam saw
the emergence of two Indianized coastal empires, the Funan
and then the Champa. Successive incursions by the Chenlas,
the Ammanites and the Khmers saw the disintegration of these
empires until the whole territory was taken over in the late
15th century by the Le dynasty of the Nam Viets who had
taken over from the Chinese the control of the north.
A Settlement In The Forest
There were monumental buildings in the mostly religious and
imperial complexes. The population was concentrated in the
northern Red-River delta of Tonkin. The rest of the land was
occupied by autonomous rural settlements. What was later
named Saigon was one of these settlements. Between the first
and sixth centuries that settlement was under the Funan
Empire. The Khmer fishermen named the original settlement
Prei Nokor ("settlement in the forest").
Life revolved around the Mekong Delta and the river. The
delta settlement of Prei Nokor was its focal point. Prei Nokor
functioned as an entrepôt for traders using the Mekong River.
The city took shape based on a "fortress-platform" in the
middle of which was the fort where the Khmer governor lived.
The surrounding areas were segregated according to race.
Indigenous Khmers lived on the north side, foreigners and
other traders engaged in business on the south. By the
seventeenth century it had a Khmer garrison and an
established trading post welcoming transactions from the
Malays, Indians, Chinese (and possibly Filipinos).
Pre-Franco Colonial Villages
Two morphologies emerged for villages in the region by the
seventeenth century. These were the thi-tran or market
village and the thanh-pho or citadel. The thi-tran had narrow
paths crossing a main street. This main axial street was
protected by bamboo palings at each end. There also was a
clear open area around for additional protection from wild
animals and bands of thieves. The thanh-pho had wide streets
in a grid pattern. Perimeter protection was by walls and moats
that were laid out according to royal geomancers. Saigon was
a thanh-pho.
By the 17th century Saigon’s commerce grew and its
importance increased. The Nguyen Empire gained control of
the settlement by the start of the 18th century. To further
protect the settlement a six-kilometer canal was dug in 1772.
This closed off the city to the west. (The Philippines could
have developed similarly if the Spanish had not sealed us from
most of the world.)
A parallel development at this time was the increase in the
number of Chinese in the settlement. In 1778, Chinese trading
communities scattered around Saigon in such places as Bien
Hue, consolidated to form the future city’s second nucleus,
that of Cholon. (Cebu’s Chinese district is called Colon.)
Cosmic Pattern
During the Tay Son rebellion in the late 18th century, which
threatened the Nguyen’s hold on power, Nguyen Anh of the
Nguyen Dynasty fled south to Saigon. He made the city his
capital in 1789 in an attempt to revive the broken Nguyen
dynasty. To strengthen his hold on the city the future emperor
rebuilt the city according to geomantic rules observed in
Chinese imperial capitals. His aim was to legitimize the
Vietnamese presence in cosmic terms.
Four symbolic mountains were selected as cardinal points.
Mount Ba Den in the northnorthwest was the section that
contained the royal palace. The Baria Mountains were to the
southeast. Cai Mai hill, in the southwest, was beside
meter-Cholon and the 100-meter high Chau Troi Hill lay in the
north east. The new citadel was named Citadel of the Eight
Trigrams. The symbolism was an open lotus flower supporting
the birth of an empire-to-be.
Within this urban morphology Nguyen Anh also made a
fortress of brick in the form of an eight-sided Gia Dinh
Citadel. This citadel was designed by two French engineers,
Olivier de Puymanel and T. Brun, in the Vauban style (similar
to Intramuros).
Nguyen Anh left Saigon in 1802 after re-conquering Hue. He
then founded the Empire of Vietnam and renamed himself
Emperor Gia Long. A French military force had assisted in the
quelling of the rebellion. This, along with religious missionary
work (which led to the assistance in building the citadel of Gia
Dinh), was the start of French involvement in the country.
Consequently, the city became very autonomous and
prospered. As time passed, Emperor Gia Long’s son Minh
Mang wanted to exert stronger control over Saigon and took
stern measures to contain its autonomy. This led to an uprising
(1833-36). The resistance was quelled with force and the
emperor had the French-designed citadel demolished.
Populations were massacred or relocated, neighborhoods
were restructured. The decimated inhabitants survived in
straw huts and sampans under the watch of an imperial
garrison. The citadel was eventually rebuilt along the same
lines as the original but on a slightly smaller scale.
The Beginning Of The French Colonial Era
The French (a latecomer to colonialism compared to the
Spanish) had been trying to gain a foothold in Indochina since
the mid-18th century. The religious orders’ perceived need to
spread the word of God and the French capitalists’ search for
an overseas market led to pressure for Napoleon III to
intercede. Hatched was an ambitious plan to make Saigon a
westernized city, equal to Batavia or Singapore and
guaranteeing the empire’s imposition of power. When the
Emperor Tu Duc persecuted French missionaries, the French
used this as a pretext to take over Saigon and from there the
rest of Indochina.
The French quickly sent a force to take over Cochin China in
1858. They conquered Saigon a year later and soon after the
Treaty of Saigon declared the city as the capital of French
Cochin China. Within a decade the country was effectively
under French control. The rest of the peninsula to the north
was taken over by 1883 and to round it all off the French
annexed Laos and Cambodia by 1893 to form French
Indochina. The French’s presence in Asia was firmly
established.
The first French attempt at a comprehensive plan was by a
military engineer, Colonel Coffyn. He drew up a plan in 1861,
which covered 2,500 hectares and could hold a population of
500,000. The total population of Saigon at the time was only
50,000 or so. The head of the military government, Admiral
Bonnard, used the plan as the basis for parceling out the land.
The Admiral had a vision of Saigon as a competitor to Hong
Kong and Singapore. This, given the potential of a major port
and access to the Mekong Delta. The plan was simplified
though with the use of a more regular grid of streets. One
rond-point was built at the Quai de Commerce. One of the
radials that emanated from and connected to the commercial
district became the oldest street in Saigon – the Rue Catinet
(which still survives with a new name, the Dong Khoi).
The city took a while to gain momentum. In the last quarter of
the 19th century, with increased trade French colonial rule
produced a public works program – the docks were
extended, strengthened and fitted with English equipment,
channels and moats were filled in, marshlands were drained,
and steam tramways put in. The first buildings were hotels and
restaurants, a prison and a printing office. (This paralleled the
American’s building program in Manila at the turn of the
century.)
Landscape architecture was a visible element in the colonial
city. Boulevards were planted to tamarind and other shade
trees. Botanical gardens were established in the 1880s by
another engineer Alphonse Germain and carried on by J.B.
Louis Pierre. The gardens included tree-lined allées, an orchid
garden, a zoo and a music pavilion. The Saigon Botanic
Gardens, like the gardens in other contemporary colonial cities
like Singapore and Manila, also served a practical purpose –
that of research and experiment in tropical cash crops.
Despite this, the gardens were an aesthetic accent for the city
and were enjoyed by all. The style of landscape design was
the fashionable Jardin Anglais-Chinoise style, which ironically
was oriental in origin.
The Pre-War Years – An End Of An Era
At the turn of the century the city filled out. Notable was the
construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral by Jules Bourard in
1880, the Palace of Justice in 1885, and the Governor of
Cochinchina’s Palace by Alfred Foulhoux in 1890.
The French planner Ernest Hebraud prepared another
comprehensive plan in 1925. The most notable of this "City
Functional" type of pattern was that Hebraud treated Saigon
and Cholon as one metropolitan region. (Aha the metropolitan
region concept again! I hope the Metro Manila mayors are
reading this.) This was towards the end of maximizing
efficiencies and increasing production.
A negative aspect of urbanism as it developed in Saigon in the
pre-war years is that of segregation. Hebraud put forward that
this was an inevitable part of the city’s growth. He advocated
integration but this "contact" had to be "organized, sanitized,
and rationalized by professional urbanists." In 1922 Saigon
instituted a zone to segregate the "poor Asiatic element" using
minimum standards of space with maximum occupancy. (Like
Forbes Parks and slums but at least there were minimum
standards set.)
The segregation did not disallow wealthier Vietnamese to live
in European districts. Educational improvements led to the
increase in size of the local elite. Hebraud’s intentions for
Saigon were to "strike a balance" between "the general
principles of rational design and the particular texture of local
cultures." His other urban plans in Vietnam included Dalat.
(Anecdotal sources point to the fact that he may have visited
Baguio to study Burnham’s plan.)
Saigon continued to develop along the same lines as much of
the other colonial cities at the time. Like the others, scarce
attention was given to public housing. Also like the others,
problems of sanitation, public hygiene, racial tensions and
underlying economic problems seethed beneath the superficial
façade of replicated Europe.
The political situation would not last forever. The Vietnamese
nationalist movement started in the 1920s, strikes became
more and more frequent but the Second World War
intervened. At liberation, the Potsdam Conference of 1945
gave the British army the task to disarm Japanese troops in
South Vietnam. They turned Saigon over to the French who
tried to take back the country. The French failed.
The Interlude Of Three Wars – And A New Urbanist Future
President Diem declared Saigon capital of the republic of
Vietnam in 1955. This was the start of the Vietnam conflict
ending in the reunification of 1975. (That famous helicopter
scene was from April of that year.) Much of the city remains
intact despite the three wars. The original patterns of the
French colonial period remain. The old exclusive residential
districts are fairly intact but now given to commercialization by
accretion.
In 1992 the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee opened a
competition for the improvement of HCMC. The winning plan
was by Skidmore Owings and Merill (SOM) of San
Francisco. The project was named "Saigon South" – a model
for sustainable development. The Master Plan was approved
by both the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, and the
Office of the Prime Minister in 1994. (Other cities in Vietnam
are using Filipino expertise. Filipino planners are currently
completing a master plan for Hanoi. Filipino planners,
landscape architects and architects are more respected on
foreign shores than on our own.)
Looking Forward With Reference To The Past
Saigon is the product of several morphological layers
reflecting the major periods of its history as a settlement and
an urban entity. The original layer was of the Khmer with their
"fortress-platform," followed by the Hue and their "Citadel of
the Eight Trigrams." The French followed with a Paris-like city
beautiful pattern and revivalist architecture. There was a long
interlude where the three wars intervened, then a period under
the New Regime.
The city developed along lines similar to Manila, Singapore
and other colonial port cities. Similar problems and issues of
racial segregation, inequitable development of infrastructure
and public amenities, are but reflective of the larger picture;
that of the colonial city as expression of dominance by a
metropolitan/colonial power.
Despite this, a synthesis of Asian mercantilism, Vietnamese
values and western ways developed into a unique Saigonese
mentality that influenced Cochinchina and the rest of
Vietnam’s commercial ideology. SOM’s current plan seeks
also to enhance this morphology in a contemporary
framework of infrastructure and real estate driven
development.
The plan of SOM, though, seems like an amalgamation of
current new-urbanist thought, Frederick Law Olmsted’s
Emerald necklace park connector concept, the parkways of
1920s America and the no-nonsense urban redevelopment of
the Singapore variety. Many of the elements and approaches
are similar to Hebraud’s initial plans of the 1920s.
The difference, between the current interventions and those of
the past, is that they are driven by the local government’s
initiatives, not the extractive and exploitative needs of a foreign
country. Whether the exploitation and extractive nature as
expressed in this future morphology or shape of the city will
not just be transferred to another power – a local elite or "the
government" – seems to reflect similar issues in the current
development of countries like Indonesia and the Philippines.
Of note too is the conservation of historic structures in the
city. The cathedral, city hall and Opera house have been
restored and adaptively reused. (While our own Metropolitan
Theater’s fate hangs in the balance.) The Vietnamese seem to
know better than some Asian neighbors who tear down their
heritage buildings to kowtow to political bosses or to make
kurakot.
Miss Saigon may not be showing in Ho Chi Minh City but at
least it’s a city that’s taking real steps to keep its original
flavor. It is working on a comprehensive masterplan at a
regional scale and is planning for the long term. It is not like
Manila, which seems to be happy in a world of make
believe... of prop helicopters landing to save us from mediocre
urban governance and even worse national bad acting.
Our city seems to be on a perennial limited engagement with
rationality and a recurring nightmare of encores for more
inanity. I hope we find a new script soon and conserve and
rebuild, like Saigon, this stage on which we act out our
colorful daily lives.
Feedback is welcome, please email the writer at philstar@hotmail.com.
By Paulo Alcazaren - www.philstar.com - December 2, 2000.
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