Nostalgia for Vietnamese Modernist Architecture Fuels Online Resurgence

For two years now, I've checked the Vietnamese Modernist Architecture Facebook group almost every day. Here, members post photos of mid-century modernist architecture they find across the country, and I still get a little excited when a house I've never seen appears in the feed. About four months ago, I noticed a shift: the notifications became more frequent, and suddenly I was watching the group grow by hundreds of members a day. I wondered when it would slow down, but it never did. Today it sits at nearly 150,000 members, up from 40,000 last year, almost quadrupled in a matter of months: Vietnamese modernism is making a comeback. For decades, almost nobody was paying attention to Vietnamese modernism, neither internationally nor locally. Internationally, it was overshadowed by better-documented tropical modernisms like Brazil, India, or Ghana, which had international “starchitects” like Le Corbusier, Niemeyer, and Fry to hype them up. Locally, it became too common to notice, as so many people built their houses in modernist style that it became vernacular, part of the street furniture, like the red ghế nhựa or the Cooper Black lettering on every storefront. Even tourists are more easily seduced by a bubblegum-pink church than a plain grey shophouse. When things are perceived as ordinary, they often lose value. Modernism was once the optimistic look of a newly independent Vietnam, but it gradually became a “poorer” aesthetic; a house you upgrade away from the moment you can afford something newer. Many have been destroyed for that reason. Buildings from before 1975, the golden age of Vietnamese modernism, make up only 15% of the country's built environment, according to a 2024 study based on Ministry of Construction data. The Vietnamese Modernist Architecture group was founded in 2015 by Mel Schenck, Tom Hricko, Tim Doling, and Hoanh Tran, with Saigoneer as an early sponsor. For a decade, the group remained as overlooked as the houses it documented. It was a space for a devoted handful to archive buildings before they vanished and pay tribute to the architects who laid the foundations of the movement, such as Ngô Viết Thụ, Lê Văn Lắm, and Nguyễn Quang Nhạc. Today the group is shifting from niche documentation to mass admiration, and I’ve stopped counting the number of “Đẹp quá!” (so beautiful) in the comment section. What's driving this comeback, I believe, is nostalgia. More precisely, urban nostalgia: the specific kind that takes hold in cities that never stop rebuilding themselves, where the built environment looks nothing like it did a few years ago. Modernism is rarely loved by the general public, so nostalgia is an unusual emotion to attach to it. Yet people now come to the group to revisit memories, and the comments turn into something close to love letters to a version of Vietnam that is disappearing. A few quotes from the comment section: “In Cà Mau Province, there are still many houses with this kind of architecture... it brings back so many memories.” “This kind of house model brings back nostalgic memories of my childhood.” “For over 50 years, this place has held the entire childhood memories of my father and me!” The same happens under my own photos on Instagram: “I've been obsessed with this house since I was a student riding to my math teacher's place to study. Now that you've posted it, I feel nostalgic and goose-pimpled at how fast time goes.” Probably the comment that best sums up these quotes is a gif a group member posted: the scene from Ratatouille where a single bite throws the food critic back to his childhood in his mother's kitchen. That sudden rush of nostalgia is exactly what these modernist house photos now seem to trigger. Perhaps that's the power of vernacular architecture. Because these modernist houses are so common, so woven into everyday life, they hold a whole population's collective memory, like an architectural madeleine de Proust. This growing interest in the nostalgic isn't only about architecture. It’s part of a wider retro wave in Vietnam, visible in a few Instagram accounts celebrating the recent past: Sách hơi cũ finds, rents, and sells old art books; Slowz Nguyen digs up and remixes old Vietnamese music, often pre-1970s; Soulvenir posts vintage photography of a Vietnam that’s fading away. There seems to be a mechanism at work similar to the west's recent Y2K revival: an optimistic era leaves behind an aesthetic that people reach back for when the present turns anxious. In the west, one of those eras was the turn of the millennium, a fresh start where technology glowed with promise. Two decades later, in our doomscrolling, hyper-connected world, flip phones and the Frutiger Aero aesthetic are trending again as a reassuring memory. For Vietnam, that era was post-independence: although still at war, a young nation had a modern future ahead of it, and modernist houses were lining every street. What people might miss isn't only the concrete, but also the confidence of the era that poured it. What people get nostalgic about usually ends up trendy. I knew Vietnamese modernism had crossed over when L'Officiel Vietnam asked to feature my photos. Scroll their Instagram, and it's top models, makeup, celebrities, then, suddenly, a concrete house pops into that immaculately curated fashion feed. The clearest proof that the style is trending is that people have started simulating it. In 2024, Cà Phê Linh opened a café in Xuân Hòa that I took for a restored mid-century building the first time I saw it. It was built from scratch instead, reproducing the modernist codes exactly: đá rửa finish, pergolas with stars, moons and suns, gạch hoa, gió tiles, diamond motifs. Cà Phê Linh's first location, opened in Xuân Hòa in 2024, was built from scratch in mid-century style. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen. The entrance's vintage style includes an enamel sign, leather armchairs, and a tiled floor, while modernist details on the façade include a diamond motif and đá rửa finish. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen. The owners judged the look marketable enough to build a new house pretending to be an old one. They were right, and the place is always packed, with a second one having opened in Saigon in late 2025. Other shops have followed, such as Mai An 1983 or Tibon by Jayden in Long Xuyên. By that point, what's being imitated isn't Vietnamese modernist architecture; it's a successful appearance. The copying of a copy, like a game of telephone, continues until it becomes a new architectural species entirely. Cà Phê Linh's second location opened in Saigon in late 2025. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen. Meanwhile, more and more cafés and bars are opening inside real modernist houses. Given how much of Vietnamese daily life happens in cafés, this is helping reframe the style as culture rather than just something old. The loudest example came from Highlands Coffee, Vietnam's largest coffee chain, which turned a modernist villa along