KVT – The Old Quarter-Ke Cho-Pho Co and an Oasis* of Information

KVT is finds a newly opened cultural exchange/interpretation center an awesome place

If this place isn’t included in your Old Quarter tour then your tour operator is a dud!

Last week I went along to 50 Dao Duy Thu Street in the old quarter to see a really good photographic exhibition by Nguyen The Son and was knocked for six (a colloquialism used in those countries that play the funny game of cricket) by the venue

In that article I said that Dao Duy Tu Street in the old quarter has changed from a backwater street – that those in the know used to duck through to escape backpacker frenzies -into one of the old quarters most ‘with it’ neighborhoods…..and its main claim to fame is not the rhubarb red shisha establishment which looks very alluring and will allure lots of backpackers!

No! The claim to real fame is just across the street at number 50-The Old Quarter Cultural Exchanges Center which is a really modern architectural WOW statement inside and a nicely understated adornment to the Old Quarter on the outside.

It was opened in February and official PR stated:

‘The opening ceremony for the Hanoi Ancient Quarter Cultural Exchange Center took place at 50 Dao Duy Tu, Hoan Kiem district, on February 2nd to celebrate the 85th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3rd).

With the aim of popularizing and preserving valuable heritage, the center is a project within the cooperation framework between Hanoi and Toulouse city (Republic of France) on preserving the heritage of area.’

Those familiar with L’Espace, the French Cultural Center in Tran Hung Dao –which was opened early this century- will immediately feel at home with the similar architectural atmosphere and will be impressed with the innovations that facilitate climate control and noise abatement

It’s a very user friendly, and free admission, interpretation center for the most popular and most visited tourist area of the city…tourists in this sense meaning foreign visitors, Vietnamese from other parts of the country, and Hanoi-ans who are growing up in other parts of the greater uban sprawl.

The entrance level is devoted to changing exhibitions that focus on aspects of the Old Quarter –the present one is a photographic exhibition that searches out the remaining community centers, or Dinh, and investigates what happened to those that have been transformed

The basement level has a really fascinating permanent exhibition that features scale models of an original street in the quarter, archeological details, and replicas of maps that show the historical growth of the quarter since its inception near and over an ‘alligator and snake infested swamp’

It’s not my place to relate the history of the old quarter…especially not now that this center exists to do exactly that

The third level also hosts a permanent exhibition that succinctly recounts the history of the quarter up to the present and, although obviously still under collation, appears to offer up a sophisticated display.

I have promised myself a return visit to take it all in as my first fleeting hour was taken up by the basement and The Son’s photos

It was a nice 85th birthday gift that the Party offered the city and it should become a must for anyone who is at all interested in how Hanoi started to spread, how it was contained by various invaders, and how it is affected by modernity

The Old Quarter has millions of stories to tell and I hope that this center can rearrange them without fear or favor

To conclude: a surreal glimpse from one of the windows into an alley

*OASIS: because inside its certainly that..quiet and cool