Paradigm Shift in the Representation of Tradition in Contemporary Vietnamese Architecture

This article examines how tradition has been expressed in Vietnamese architecture since the 1986 Reformation (Đổi Mới). It argues that a paradigm shift has taken place: rather than replicating familiar historical forms and motifs, architects increasingly mobilise modern technology to foreground the tactile, experiential, and phenomenological dimensions of space. The study draws on a corpus of 103 award-winning or widely recognised buildings constructed between 1986 and 2024 across Vietnam, evaluated against seven dimensions and twenty-eight criteria. From this corpus, eighteen representative projects were investigated in depth through site observation and photographic documentation, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with the architects of six works, whose responses were coded and compared against the buildings themselves. The analysis identifies a progression through several modes of representing tradition. Early strategies relied on historicism, the direct copying of curved roofs, decorative motifs, and timber-frame structures, and on the exemplification of selected traditional features through tectonic transposition and the evocation of cultural spirit. Subsequent national-scale projects translated tradition into abstract cultural themes and landmarks, though often at a monumental scale that weakened the intimacy of vernacular architecture. Since the early 2000s, a more contemporary direction has emerged that reinterprets traditional local materials and construction methods, using modern techniques to innovate with bamboo, rammed earth, and clay tiles, and to compose multi-sensory, embodied spaces shaped by light, water, weathering, and material presence. Grounded in phenomenological thinking, this approach aligns with sustainable design while restoring a humanistic and qualitative foundation to architectural meaning, even as its reliance on subjective experience marks it as an emerging paradigm that invites further interdisciplinary study. The study concludes that the works which most convincingly embody tradition are defined not by scale but by their tangible rootedness in local geography, history, cultural depth, and everyday community life, offering a vital path for the continuity of Vietnamese architectural identity.