Vietnamese traditional house

Lanes and walls help separate one house from the others.  This makes a village quite compact while permitting the residents to move about freely and socialize.

The architecture of a traditional house varies, although there are two main types: a house comprised of a central building and separate apartment, which are often seen in the northern delta area, and a house with one main building in the center with apartments on either side.

The compound of a traditional house has different parts, including the main building, the side apartment(s), a garden, a fish pond, poultry and cattle breeding areas, a drying yard, fences and a gate.

Vietnamese farmers in particular are knowledgeable about how to utilize and balance the environment to make their life stable and in harmony with the surrounding area on the one hand while keeping their own homes a well balanced part of the village as a whole.

There are always three elements that can be found in the housing company of the Vietnamese people who live in tropical and humid areas: human beings, land and water.

To the Vietnamese people, the main structure plays an essential role of the entire house compound. It used to be built with odd number of rooms (i.e. with 1, 3, 5 or 7), plus two wings at either end of the main building. A house with even number of rooms is rarely built.

The number of the rooms and the quality of construction materials used depend on the owner’s wealth or the land on which the compound is built.

A house is often built symmetrically. As the individual rooms are often odd numbered, the central room is reserved as the family’s place of worship and a guest room.

The interior in a traditional Vietnamese house reflects the ancient view that valued men above women: the sleeping place for the male members is in the central compartment, while that for the female members is in the side rooms in the house’s wings.

The central compartment can be visualized as the face of the house. Because it is reserved for worshiping the ancestors and welcoming guests, it is built more carefully and delicately compared to the other parts of the house.

The pillars and beams are made of wood and they are carved or painted with various designs. The design motifs come from nature and social life such as flowers and plants, animals, social activities, etc. Thus, each house creates a miniature picture of the society of the Vietnamese people.

Due to influences from Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, the Vietnamese people build an altar in the main compartment that is decorated with horizontal lacquered boards and parallel vertical panels with sentences written in old scripts. It doesn’t matter whether the host is rich or poor, the altar is always located in the best place in the house and gets the owner’s most respect.

To make the house durable and last for dozens of years, house owner pays special attention to the construction processes, that includes not only selecting materials to build the house, but more important than that, deciding the direction that the house would face and the date for the ground breaking ceremony.

This event must be launched on a propitious date, at a propitious time, and is conducted by a man of the age. The Vietnamese have a saying, “When choosing a wedding day, it must depend on the woman’s age, but when building a house, it depends on the man’s age.”

To the Vietnamese people, a house is a big asset not only for the current family, but also for many generations to come. This is because the proper construction of a house may have a strong effect on the family member’s business, as well as the ups and downs in their whole life.

Construction materials are those available locally, such as the timber, bamboo, stone, soil, etc., depending on each family’s wealth. The main frame of the house, together with the beams, is often made of wood which are assembled together using fish-tail shaped joints.

The walls can be made of wooden planks covered with mud mixed with rice straws, or with bricks, and painted with white lime. The windows are open around the walls. The roof is covered with yin and yang tiles.

Under the roof and at the front part of the house, there are rows of pillars that help to support the house. Looking from outside, the traditional house of the Vietnamese people is simply built, but in fact it is very durable and can stand for many years to come. 

(Source: Vietnam Pictorial)