“Tube House” and “Neo Tube House” in Hanoi: A Comparative Study on Identity and Typology

Abstract

Among Hanoi’s different housing forms, the traditional “Tube house” in Hanoi’s Old Quarter (built before and in the19th century) and the modern “Street house” (built after the Vietnamese Economic Reform in 1986 and called the “Neo tube house” in this paper) are the 2 dwelling forms that have certain similarities as well as basic differences. Yet, they have never been compared in any previous study. Though the “Tube house“ has been extensively studied so far, there are still little-studied aspects such as identity and characteristics. Moreover, “Neo tube house”, despite its dominant appearance in contemporary urban fabrics of Vietnamese big cities, has not been adequately studied so far, though it was sometimes criticized in Vietnamese architectural and urban debates. Therefore, this paper aims to primarily study these 2 forms in terms of identity, characteristics and typology with my own pictorial proofs, and then interpret their relationship as well as compare them on those aspects to draw urban development lessons.