Old Hanoi apartment building at an exhibition in Moscow

In the heart of the vibrant and bustling Hanoi Capital, to this day, besides skyscrapers and modern high-class apartment buildings, there are still architectural works - "historical witnesses", symbols of the subsidy lifestyle of a time - which are old collective housing areas inspired by Soviet architecture.

Collective housing - a representative of the community living model, "common inside, unique inside". Does anyone think that one day, the architecture of old collective housing in Hanoi will be displayed abroad? Yet, thousands of kilometers away from Hanoi, in Moscow (Russian Federation) is taking place the exhibition "Moscow - Hanoi: Optimistic imprints in architecture and urban life" at the GES-2 Cultural House.

At the exhibition, visitors have the opportunity to admire the architecture of collective housing in Hanoi, visually access the spatial form and experience urban life. The exhibition focuses on collective housing areas in Hanoi - which developed from the Soviet-style small residential model - architectural models of the socialist era, after being recreated and transformed to suit the climate and environment in Vietnam. From apartments of only a few dozen square meters, in order to meet living needs and habits, many households in collective housing areas have built more balconies, extended and built more "tiger cages".

The exhibition displays 3 parts: Connecting archival documents, architectural research, contemporary artworks and daily life memories of the communities of Vietnam and Russia. The entire exhibition space is covered with transparent fabric, quite simple, contrasting with the characteristic yellow paint color of old collective housing areas of Hanoi during the subsidy period... shown in the photos taken.

Amidst the pale white space, the image of rows of apartment buildings built close together, looking like boxes stacked on top of each other, appeared in our eyes as a vivid and funny entity. Apartment buildings are not just old buildings, apartment buildings are also "legacies" of a collective lifestyle with common gardens, rows of yellow-painted corridors, balconies drying fresh clothes, apartment buildings... It's truly a miniature society!

Born and raised in Ho Chi Minh City for nearly 20 years, going to Hanoi many times, visiting my aunt's family living in Kim Lien apartment complex several times, but before coming to see the exhibition, I had no concept, and didn't know too much about apartment building architecture.

I was born, raised, and lived with my whole family in a modern apartment, each apartment is like a private world of each person, no one bothers anyone. Watching the exhibition, when standing in front of the images of apartment buildings with "tiger cages" interwoven between floors forming a "matrix", my best friend Daiaana - from Yakusk, could not help but exclaim: "So how many private matters are heard by neighbors, if the houses are built close together like this?". I explained to my friend, "tiger cages" are built more to expand the house area, people often use this space to dry clothes, hang clothes or make balconies. We both agreed, adding "tiger cages", apartment buildings seem to be attached with a "nose" to breathe.

Looking at the photos of apartment buildings in Dong Da district, I remember summers going to Hanoi to play and stay at my aunt's house. To be honest, summers in Hanoi, apartment buildings are like... bat quai stoves. Each apartment - a modest 24-square-meter space, not airy, hiding from the heat inside is even more suffocating than standing outside on the street. The narrow rows of houses, separated by just open corridors, are also narrow, yet, like my aunt and her husband, a skilled architect who studied in Romania, said "the house is still persistent and lasts for more than half a century!".

Collective housing is not only a type of urban space, but also a representative of a centralized planned economy, a vivid proof of the subsidy period of the Capital.

In the context of modernization and urbanization, in a Hanoi that is "changing skin and flesh" every day with many modern apartments and new urban areas, the existence of apartment buildings reflects the harmony and conflict between the architectural environment and the old lifestyle, in contrast to the rise of the new architecture. Unfortunately, we did not see the contrasting image between high-rise buildings and old apartment buildings at the exhibition.

After watching the exhibition, I suddenly remembered reading news about Hanoi urgently focusing on completing detailed planning to renovate old apartment buildings and apartment buildings in the city. Old buildings will gradually be dismantled, which is inevitable when many buildings are currently seriously degraded. But the living memories of people who used to live in apartment buildings such as my aunt's family, my cousins will never be lost! The emotional lingering feeling about a place where they were born and raised is like invisible, fragile but flexible lotus silk fibers, preserving the soul of urban memories every time we look back to reminisce about a past time...