Fine Arts Museum and Reunification Palace – Saigon

Fine Arts?

We hadn’t been to an art gallery for a little while by the time we got to Saigon so we thought this would be a nice opportunity. The building turned out to be more interesting that the actual art! The former school was light and airy with 3 floors and a series of internal balconies which looked out onto a small square central courtyard that created a wonderful sun trap. Just visible on the concrete floor was the painted remains of badminton court.

Downstairs were mainly paintings in many and varied medium. Most of them painted during, post and about the many wars the Vietnamese have endured. As we wandered through the old classrooms housing the exhibits, the museum felt more like its former self, as if we were attending a GCSE Art open day! We hastened upstairs where the gallery redeemed itself with some interesting sculpture, but I remember hoping this was not the extent of the ‘fine art’ in Vietnam and that we would find some better examples later on in the trip!!!

Reunification Palace

This site, although relatively modern, had a long and turbulent history in Vietnam’s past. The surviving building we went to see dated from the mid 20th Century. From the outside it looked it’s age – too heavy on concrete and straight lines for my liking! From above the building was designed in the shape of an old Vietnamese character for peace and strength.

Inside though the building was fantastic! It had a very modern decadence about it, and it felt incredibly kitsch. On the ground and first floor there were numerous conference, reception and guest rooms, all of which felt like they should of have been part of a set for a Bond film. There was even a small cinema all decked out with red velvet and gold silk banding! On a helicopter pad joined to the building was an old helicopter once used at the palace, and next to where it sat were still remaining marks from the last time the building was attacked at the end of the Vietnam War.

The best part of the building though was the basement, once down the stairs the lush interiors changed to cramped clinical cream coloured claustrophobic corridors (the C’s aren’t intentional I promise!!), with a rabbit warren of small offices leading from them. We had entered the war rooms. All dating from the 60’s and 70’s there were fantastically dated communication machines and maps. My favourite room was an old Formica desk with a series of bakelite cream and pink phones. We spent a good hour feeling like we were the men from U.N.C.L.E. as we wandered the many rooms and tried to work out what the machines did and what the function of each room was. After a quick look in the palace kitchens we left being thoroughly surprised by the whole experience – I had expected a palace like we had seen in Thailand or Cambodia – but I really enjoyed the whole experience nevertheless.