The Old Quarter New Look in Ha Noi Vietnam

One of the oldest parts of Hanoi is the Old Quarter, or Pho Co as it's known to local Vietnamese. The area's street plan is 500 years old, but many of the houses in the area were constructed in more recent times from the beginning of the 20th century and onwards.The Old Quarter is a thrilling place to walk around, shopping, eating, drinking and observing. But it’s also one of the most congested areas in the world (with over 800 people per hectare) and although from the street everything looks okay, much of it is rundown and many residents live in squalor. As a result, there are plans to revamp the Old Quarter. One of the busiest streets in the area, Ta Hien has been renewed as part of a VND15 billion project funded by Hoan Kiem district authorities with an additional financial and technical support from France, which provided 40,000 euros and sent experts from Toulouse to oversee the project. The Hanoi Old Quarter Management Unit was charged with carrying out the plan with the Vietnam Institute of Architecture, Urban and Rural Planning (VIAP) under the Ministry of Construction in a design and consultancy role. The street, which stretches from Hang Buom to Hang Bac street before turning into Dinh Liet, is right in the heart of what is now Hanoi's unofficial "backpacker district", dubbed Pho Tay (Street of Foreigners) by some locals. There are a string of handicraft shops, restaurants, bars and fake DVD shops all competing for the tourist dollar. At the Luong Ngoc Quyen junction you will also find "bia hoi corner" where a string of houses sell tahe city's cheapest brew, attracting a vibrant mix of backpackers, young expats and curious locals.

In French colonial times, the short 266 m-long Street was dubbed Rue Geraud though locals often called it Quang Lac alley after a famous theatre of the same name. After the August Revolution, the street was renamed Ta Hien (after Ta Quang Hien, one of leaders of the Can Vuong movement, a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1889 against French colonial rule).According to Pham Tuan Long, vice head of Hanoi's Old Quarter Management Unit, Ta Hien was one of a few streets to have maintained its original architecture and that's why the street was selected first. This pilot project tackled just one small 52mlong section of the street, which was constructed in early 20th century. In this section, the front facade of 10 two-story French architectural style terrace houses with sloping tiled roofs on one side of the street and a group of Vietnamese style houses on the other side were successfully restored to their former glory. All of the houses were built when the country was still under the French colonial rule. The basic structures were intact though they were in dilapidated condition. The work involved plastering and repainting walls, balconies and windows, and a unified design was incorporated for the front doors, air-conditioning units and advertising boards. The road surface was repaired with stone, while the drainage and streetlight systems were upgraded. The project was kicked off in November, 2010 but it took one year to complete instead of six months as initially planned. However, according to insiders, the groundwork of establishing the project, completing procedures and negotiating with the related households started nearly four years before construction began. When under construction, the projects also predictably faced many challenges.

"We conducted serious research for this renovation." says Nguyen Hoang Long, one of VIAP's chief architects working on the project. "But the real implementation required many adjustments to meet residents' demands"."For example, the front face of the first house at the Ta Hien Luong Ngoc Quyen junction, where many foreign backpackers flock to enjoy bia hoi was opened up a little more to accommodate more bars," says Long. "Unlike restoration work carried out on temples and pagodas, with these houses we also had to meet the demands of local residents, and could not simultaneously start work on all houses on the same day," adds Long. Tran Mien, the head of a local resident group, says that in order to improve this street, for over a year, they had to organise many meetings to discuss with and listen to local people voice their opinions about the process and methods. In practice, many households here are poor and living in poor conditions, so no one would complain about improved infrastructure. However, many households were still in doubt until the work was completed and the street's new face was revealed. Everyone could see the clear and marked difference between the improved and unimproved parts of the street.

"The new Ta Hien street has become an ideal place for restaurants and souvenir shops. Together with natural stone paving and the installation of additional lighting systems, we also asked the Hanoi's Old Quarter Management Unit to study the layout of public systems with wooden benches added to serve tourists," says Hoang Long. The street will soon be pedestrianised at certain times during the weekends, as will neighbouring streets Hang Buom, Hang Giay, Luong Ngoc Quyen, Ma May and Dao Duy Tu. After all these ground breaking changes, local residents are by and large delighted with the street's new appearance. "I have been living on Ta Hien street for a half of century." says Trinh Tho, an 81 yearold resident at 17 Ta Hien. "Overall, the streets' architecture looks more uniform and attractive. The architecture looks like the initial architecture from the early 20th century but it seems more spacious now. Many local people in the Old Quarter and visitors have been surprised and praised the street's improvement." One local shop owner, Minh Long, admits he had his concerns when restoration work was underway. "It was very chaotic and dusty, but we realised that the improvement of the street is essential in the long term," says Long. "Three months ago, we sometimes had to close our shop while still paying rent. Now we all hope, with a clean and spacious new face, Ta Hien Street will become a tourist destination in Hanoi's Old Quarter." "At first, people simply thought that this was only about renovating," says Le Thi Bich Thuan, vice director of Vietnam Institute of Architecture Urban and Rural Planning (VIAP). "But before starting the work, we also had to carry out an investigation to assess the street's condition and plan the conservation planning and landscape design. The most complex but crucial step was convincing local people, especially those people who own houses directly related sto the street frontage. "We should not question and solve problems by ourselves without the locals' consent,' says Thuan.