Oops – all you can do here is take a second look! Since unlike our other viewing habits, the top level of the five-story museum is definitely the largest of them all with an area of 92 by 92 meters. The edge length of the square layouts is getting narrower step by step, until it is only 42 meters on the first floor. This unusual effect is even intensified through the projecting 109 by 109 meter large roof with its characteristic light ceilings. Looking down on it from a bird’s eye-view it looks as if you were able to conveniently play a match of chess on top of the building like on a gigantic table.

Open towards all Directions

The new Museum of town history is located at the Western border of the large city in the middle of a new park, providing space for outdoor exhibits, monuments or traditional villages. Based on this green scenery, the house can easily be opened up from all directions. Once inside the end-to-end glazed lobby of the square-shaped building, your gaze will hit a round air space with an ascending spiral ramp, connecting the entrance level with the two exhibition levels above in a flowing manner. On the fifth floor, von Gerkan, Marg und Partner have also integrated several meeting, research and office rooms as well as a library. The light ceilings, arranged in a staggered manner, the large floor plan as well as the additional air spaces provide plenty of space for presenting larger exhibits .

Selected Shadowing 

Another result of the unusual building shape is the end-to-end shadowing of the individual floors. This does not only allows for an easier preservation of the exhibits on display, but is also part of the new building’s energy concept. Apart from that, the terrace-shaped setup provides an exciting effect for the visitors, since you have a feeling of floating above the scenery when looking outside through the stainless steel fabric placed in front of the windows. In the background you can see the highrise outlines of Hanoi.

As a second building on site von Gerkan, Marg und Partner have erected is the national conference center in Hanoi, completed already in 2006. And during the next months, the new Ministry of Public Security, also designed by gmp, is scheduled to be opened. You could always argue about the legitimacy of projects like these for a communist state such as Vietnam. And that’s exactly what architect Meinhard von Gerkan has done quite reasonably in the past – last time in the German news magazine “Spiegel online” at  http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,756259,00.html on the occasion of the opening of the Chinese National Museum. However, discussions have to go on ...