The journey to regain the "glory" of cultural heritage

The Central region is home to many unique cultural sediments of the Vietnamese people, of which Hue and Da Nang cities possess three typical World Cultural Heritages recognized by UNESCO, including the Complex of Hue Monuments - the capital of the Nguyen Dynasty for 143 years (1802-1945), Hoi An Ancient Town - a bustling international trading port from the 16th century and My Son Temple Complex - a valley worshiping the gods of many ancient Champa dynasties.

These cultural heritages have had a long journey from being forgotten and ruined to being revived and shining brightly.

To clarify this process, VNA reporters have produced a series of three articles on the topic: "The "gold mine" of Central Vietnam tourism : From oblivion to revival and shine"

Lesson 1: The journey to regain the "glory" of cultural heritage

More than 30 years ago, the Complex of Hue Monuments (Hue City), Hoi An Ancient Town and My Son Sanctuary ( Da Nang City) were all relic sites that seemed to have been "forgotten" over time and were at risk of becoming ruins. Resources for restoration, embellishment and protection were extremely difficult and limited.

The important milestone in reviving these relics was when they were honored by UNESCO as World Cultural Heritage in 1993 and 1999. Since then, these world-class heritages have taken on a new look and have been strongly revived.

Beyond the Boundary

The Hue Monuments Conservation Center currently preserves many documentary photos of relic sites from decades ago, showing serious degradation and desolation, with many areas becoming ruins.

After the war, many unique architectural works in the Forbidden City area were destroyed by bombs. Only 62 structures remained in the Imperial Citadel area compared to the original 130 or so.

The Citadel area has only 97 structures left but they are also in a state of severe damage, many bullet marks are still deeply imprinted on the steles and the Nine Tripod Cauldrons to this day.

Hue Imperial City attracts a large number of visitors. (Photo: Van Dung/VNA)

In addition, every year, the ancient capital of Hue is often negatively affected by unusual weather, including the flood in 1953, the storm in 1985, the historic flood in 1999... which destroyed relics hundreds of years old.

Director of the Hue Monuments Conservation Center Hoang Viet Trung said that the Nguyen Dynasty - the last feudal dynasty of Vietnam - left for posterity a massive system of relics with citadels, palaces, mausoleums, and palaces.

However, the devastation of war and harsh weather have severely affected this heritage complex. The Hue Citadel was once the site of many bombs and bullets, and many areas and architectural works were wiped out.

The remaining architectural works after the war were all degraded, damaged, and dilapidated to varying degrees, the landscape of the heritage sites was in a state of desolation, with vegetation encroachment. Immediately after the country's reunification, investment resources for heritage conservation were limited, causing Hue's heritage to face numerous challenges and be at risk of collapse.

Upstream of the Thu Bon River (Da Nang), the My Son temple complex was formed in the late 4th century under the Bhadravarman I dynasty to worship the god Shiva and became the most important religious center of many ancient Champa dynasties lasting for 9 centuries (from the 4th century to the 13th century) with a massive Hindu temple system.

However, from the 13th century onwards when the Cham capital was moved to the South, My Son gradually lost its central role and was forgotten.

In the 19th century, the French discovered the temple complex, began to study the stele inscriptions, and organized archaeological excavations in the early 20th century.

The result of the above process revealed 72 towers, temples and other dependent architectures which were divided by French researchers into 13 tower areas with the letters A, B, C, D…N.

By 1969, the US imperialists had dropped devastating bombs, destroying and severely damaging many temples and towers, including the 24m high A1 tower, considered a masterpiece of Champa architecture in My Son.

Currently, the entire relic has only about 20 temples and towers in a state of disrepair. In the early 1980s, the My Son temple complex also faced a historic moment of being submerged under water when the locality planned to implement a project to block the flow, dam, and build a reservoir for irrigation to serve agricultural production, but fortunately this project was later stopped.

International tourists visit Hoi An Ancient Town. (Photo: Do Truong/VNA)

Downstream of Cua Dai estuary, Hoi An ancient town was formed and developed since the 16th century, once one of the busiest international trading ports in Southeast Asia.

Since the 16th century, merchants from China, Japan, the Netherlands, India and Spain have come here to trade goods. Therefore, the architectural works and cultural values of Hoi An ancient town are a convergence of many Eastern and Western cultures.

After the country's liberation in 1975, the ancient urban area of Hoi An was preserved quite intact with more than 1,100 architectural relics, including houses, bridges, wells, markets, religious buildings, communal houses, pagodas, mausoleums, shrines, assembly halls, and clan churches.

However, Hoi An ancient town has gone through a period of being forgotten, prejudiced, doubted about its value and at one point many religious structures were at risk of being destroyed for the reason of eliminating feudal culture.

Fortunately at that time, thanks to the vision of the local leader, Mr. Ho Nghinh, Secretary of the Quang Nam-Da Nang Provincial Party Committee at that time, he promptly prevented and preserved an ancient Hoi An from widespread destruction, so that the tangible and intangible cultural values of this town were gradually recognized and awakened to become a heritage of humanity later.

Model of heritage conservation

Overcoming countless challenges of time and history, these three world heritages have moved from the "emergency rescue" phase to a stable development phase, highly appreciated internationally, and considered a model in heritage conservation work in the world today.

Since being recognized as a World Heritage Site in 1999, many large-scale conservation programs have been implemented in Hoi An ancient town.

Italian and Vietnamese experts supervise the scientific dismantling and cleaning process at the collapsed towers of Group L towers in preparation for restoration work. (Photo: Doan Huu Trung/VNA)

According to statistics, from 2008 to now, more than 400 relics have been restored with a budget of about 150 billion VND, including capital from the state budget and contributions from the community. Thereby, hundreds of ancient architectural works have escaped the risk of collapse, preserving their appearance for many generations.

Da Nang City is aiming to complete 100% of the restoration of degraded relics by 2030 and establish complete scientific records for all tangible and intangible cultural heritages.

By 2035, Hoi An will expand its heritage protection area, ensuring the integrity and outstanding global value of the ancient town.

Deputy Director of the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center Pham Phu Ngoc said that most of the ancient houses in Hoi An are hundreds of years old and are privately or collectively owned.

During the implementation process, the authorities classified the degraded works that needed to be restored according to the level of urgency and provided support of 40%-75% of the cost.

Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center is the unit that plans and directly implements the restoration, ensuring compliance with the principles of relic conservation and receiving high consensus from the people.

Professor, Doctor, architect Hoang Dao Kinh commented that the heritage city of Hoi An is being preserved intact, solidly and developed organically, opening up the prospect of building Hoi An in the 21st century into a historical-ecological city, with a very unique position in the system of Vietnamese cities.

According to experts, activities to preserve and promote the value of Hue's cultural heritage have entered a phase of stability and sustainable development.

The locality is currently assessed by UNESCO as a leader in preserving and promoting heritage values, with the potential to become a standard center for transferring conservation technology in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Complex of Hue Monuments is the first World Cultural Heritage of Vietnam to be recognized by UNESCO in 1993. A remarkable event marking a turning point in the recognition of heritage values and the beginning of the process of restoration and revival of this heritage in 1981, the Director General of UNESCO at that time - Mr. Amadou Mahtar M'Bow issued an appeal to save Hue's cultural heritage.

Mr. Amadou Mahtar M'Bow emphasized that Hue heritage is in a state of danger, standing on the brink of extinction and oblivion. Only urgent rescue with the efforts of the Vietnamese Government and the international community can help the ancient capital of Hue escape from this situation.

Following that appeal, an international campaign to support the ancient capital of Hue was vigorously launched. The typical and outstanding values of the Nguyen Dynasty heritages were recognized and evaluated in their true stature. Since then, the perception of the heritages of this dynasty has gradually changed in a positive direction.

After more than 30 years, since the Complex of Hue Monuments was recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage, in the field of preserving tangible cultural values, nearly 200 works and construction items have been repaired, restored and embellished.

From 2019 to present, Hue city has implemented the project "Relocation of residents, site clearance of area 1 of Hue Citadel relic", with thousands of households being relocated to new residences, returning the site to the relic.

In the process of reviving and becoming a World Cultural Heritage of the ancient capital of Hue, the ancient town of Hoi An and the My Son temple complex all had an important role and mark of the Polish architect Kazimierz Kwiatkowski (1944-1997), commonly known as Kazik.

Statue of Polish architect Kazimierz Kwiatkowski (1944-1997) in Hoi An ancient town, a place to commemorate and acknowledge his contributions to Hoi An's cultural heritage. (Photo: Do Truong/VNA)

On Tran Phu Street in Hoi An ancient town, there is a small park with a bust of architect Kazik to commemorate and recognize his great contributions to the cultural heritage of Hoi An in particular and Vietnam in general.

Since the early 1980s, Mr. Kazik has been to Vietnam in a cooperation program between the two governments to help Vietnam in researching and restoring ancient Cham towers in My Son.

After that, Mr. Kazik contacted and recognized the outstanding global value of Hoi An ancient town, Hue Monuments Complex and made efforts to mobilize local authorities to preserve and maintain the unique architectural relics here, while constantly making efforts to introduce and promote them to the world.

Head of the Conservation-Museum Department (My Son World Cultural Heritage Management Board) Nguyen Van Tho said that architect Kazik and his colleagues have made great contributions in restoring the appearance of the My Son temple complex from the ruins, reinforcing the ancient towers from collapse, and laying the foundation for later restoration stages.

Architect Kazik strictly adheres to the school of archaeological restoration, which is to preserve the original relics and original components intact, not to distort or fake the relics, mainly using technical reinforcement measures to maintain the current state, only partially restoring if there is a scientific basis, not advocating complete restoration, not mixing the original and the newly added reinforcement.

From 1997 to 2022, the research, conservation and restoration of My Son relics have achieved many new achievements thanks to cooperation programs between Vietnam, Italy and India in the restoration of tower groups G, H, K, A.

Currently, the Indian side is continuing to support the restoration of towers E and F in the 2025-2030 period./.

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/hanh-trinh-tim-lai-hao-quang-cua-di-san-van-hoa-post1062044.vnp