A 17th century
communal house (dinh) on the outskirts of Hanoi that won the highest prize in
the heritage preservation category at the International Union of Architects in
Xi'an, China, last month, has officially reopened after months of restoration.
"The model
restoration project aimed to duplicate as best as possible the original
design," said Tran Lam Ben from the Cultural Heritage Department.
"However, there has been some improper restoration work, which we will ask
the workers to fix later."
According to
architect Le Thanh Vinh, who headed the restoration team, the work was
extremely intricate.
"We first had
to conduct very careful research on all the relics to gauge what sort of
condition they were in," he said.
Ultra-sound equipment
was used to check the condition of the house's wooden pillars, he said.
Chu Quyen Communal
House's 48 wooden pillars were damaged by weathering. However, only two had to
be replaced, Vinh said.
The original house
roof was made up of 51 different kinds of tiles. Restorers said 48,000 of the
original tiles were saved. Those that needed to be replaced were produced using
traditional methods of baking clay over straw.
Because of efforts
to duplicate the original design, the work took twice as long as normal, Vinh
said.
The restoration beat
33 entries from 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region to win the architects'
award – the first Vietnam
has won.
The communal house,
more commonly referred to as the Chang Communal House, is in Hanoi's Ba Vi district. It consists of a
room, largely constructed of wood, for worship.
The house was
recognised as a historical site in 1962. Restoration on the house began in
2007.
said the project would serve as the standard for other restoration work./.
