Vietnam receives Asian 'Nobel Prize for Architecture' for the first time

Architect Hoang Thuc Hao, lecturer at Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, has just become the first Vietnamese to win the SIA-Getz Architecture Award 2016.

Architect Hoang Thuc Hao, lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, is also the founder and chief architect of the architectural office 1+1>2. With his contributions to the architectural industry, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao was selected to receive the SIA-Getz Architecture Award 2016, the award for outstanding Asian architects.

Architect Hoang Thuc Hao was honored to receive the SIA Architecture Award 2016.

Sharing his feelings when receiving this award, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao said: “I was very surprised to be the winner this year, the award is a recognition for a series of works with our community philosophy. This is also a great motivation and encouragement to create confidence for us in the future.”

According to the regulations, the candidate must be nominated by a prestigious person, the application file must be at least 5 works along with a presentation on the candidate's design ideas. Accordingly, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao brought to the SIA-Getz award this year typical architectural works following the philosophy of happiness, with strong community spirit such as: Bhutan Happiness Center, Lung Luong School (Thai Nguyen), Suoi Re Community House (Hoa Binh), Cam Thanh Community House (Hoi An, Quang Binh), new rural house in Ha Giang.

Cam Thanh Community House (Hoi An, Quang Nam).

The special thing about the architectural works of Architect Hoang Thuc Hao is that they all have a community character, green architecture, and sustainable development. The beneficiaries of his architectural works are people in rural areas, remote areas, ethnic minorities, and underdeveloped areas.

Lung Luong School (Thai Nguyen).

When asked why he embarked on projects that did not bring in profits, even having to spend his own money, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao confided that these were architectural projects that he had cherished since his student days. He said that currently, a large number of disadvantaged areas do not have architects to design them.

Therefore, the projects aimed at the countryside, for the poor, mostly built by the state, only partially meet the needs of living space and activities without having their own identity. Meanwhile, this community accounts for 70-80% of the population, they hold a huge cultural reserve, contribute to the development of mankind and they have every right to express those cultural values ​​through architecture. Architect Hoang Thuc Hao shared that this is the motivation that makes him increasingly delve into community architectural projects.

Architect Hao believes that to carry out these projects, if done purely from an architectural perspective, it is completely impossible. To turn designs into real projects, architects need to act as social activists, mobilizing resources to realize their ideas and also proactively reaching out to disadvantaged communities, learning about their own culture to breathe indigenous culture into each project.

Talking about his professional views, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao said: “In the end, it is still culture, all creativity must essentially lie in culture, must be successful cultural adaptations and innovations. I think that any art must have humanity and humanism. Creativity is first and foremost for the future of humanity and secondly for the future of culture. Architects only have those two points, cannot use it in the name of anything else.”

Sharing about his plans for the future, Architect Hoang Thuc Hao said that he will continue to pursue happy architecture. That is, when the users of the architectural works feel happy. Using and living in that work, people must feel healthy, safe, excited, and see the past and the future./.

According to VOV