Modern French Architecture in Ha Noi -1930-1945

The Indochinese Architectural Style begun by Hebrard at the end of the 1920s led to a relatively limited number of buildings because State commissions commissions were tapering off. However, the construction of private villas became a lucrative opportunity for the privileged few architects who created a resurgence of designs during the 1940s. The most noteworthy of these architects was Arthur Kruze, a professor and director of the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts de l'Indochine. He recaptured the fundamental elements of the Indochinese Architectural Style while building villas for a French and clientele. Architects appointed completed villas in the residential area of Avenue Carnot (now Phan Dinh Phung) near the Governor General's Palace as part of a Credit Foncier real estate scheme.

Kruze and George Trouve appointed architects to build the Bank of Indochina (49 Ly Thai To Street, completed in 1930) and the Credit Foncier Office on Trang Tien Street. The temperate Art Deco modernism of these two buildings retained only a few principles of composition from the Indochinese Architectural Style, notably the tri-partition of bays. They have a certain heaviness and oversimplification foreign to Hebrard's work.

Soon, a group of young Vietnamese university graduates replaced this trend with a more avant-garde and international vision. These first Vietnamese architects had received a top-level, individualized education divided between the study of ancient buildings and exposure to new European ideas. However, the French excluded Vietnamese architects from designing State buildings. Instead, the Vietnamese built their reputations by creating private villas, thereby cementing the important role of the Fine Arts College in creating new architectural styles.

Within ten years, Vietnamese architects had built more than one hundred villas combining isolated rationalism and freer compositions. They integrated into their designs overhangs for thermal purposes, covered staircases, curved facades, terraced-roofs, and circular windows and also used Asian-inspired ornamental plaster and paint on the exteriors. By doing so, they created a modern quarter and changed the look of Ha Noi. These villas are concentrated on the main arteries south of the Old Citadel: Le Hong Phong Street (the Romanian embassy at #5), Tran Phu, Street (the Singaporean embassy at #41-43 and World Wildlife Fund at #53), Ly Thuong Kiet Street (the Cuban embassy and residence at #65 and the National Atomic Laboratory at #59), and Tran Hung Dao Street (the French, Indian, and Cambodian Embassies at #s 57, 58, and 71 respectively, and the Elders' Club at #91).