Most of houses in Hoi An were built with 17th – 19th century traditional architecture. They are allocated along narrow streets with many religious architectural works, including wooden houses, temples, pagodas, semi-circle wells, and club houses, etc. These works have their architecture style blended among that of China, Japan and Vietnam, marking a bustling time of Hoi An when it was still an international port city.
With such values, on 1 December 1999, Hoi An old town got recognized as a world heritage by UNESCO. The brand name of Hoi An old town – Vietnam gets listed as a destination in the tour to discover world heritages.
Hoi An old town group is currently home to over 1,107 ancient houses which get classified according to their ages. According to statistics of Hoi An Relic Management and Preservation Center, many of the above ancient houses are now in poor condition, which forces appropriate authorities in Hoi An into a passive situation since they have to apply various solutions to restore such houses according to their own downgraded conditions.
Since 2004, Quang Nam provincial People’s Committee and Hoi An Town have made a list of 82 relics which are in need of urgent restoration with an investment sum totaling VND47.831 billion together with a supportive mechanism ranging between 40 and 75 percent for each type of relic. Despite support from the state, relics under private ownership are still unable to afford their contribution sum.
The implementation of restoring and upgrading relics encounters many difficulties since many requirements related to technique and restoring principles arise during the implementation process. When a certain house gets restored, nearby houses need to be taken into consideration as well in order to avoid the domino effect. Restoring and upgrading ancient houses belonging to private ownership in Hoi An face obstacles stemming from society and family relationships, etc. since many of the relics are assets of a group, inherited assets or common assets. It is, therefore, impossible to identify who gets named in the restoration job.
Almost all relics in Hoi An are wooden ones. In order for the restoring work to take place, Hoi An needs hundreds of blocks of good wood annually, such as iron wood, kingwood and peck-wood, etc. However, these types of wood are currently in the state’s list of forbidden exploitation. Whether or not should the state have a unique mechanism which creates favourable conditions for Hoi An to purchase wood from legal sources or receive wood liquidated by appropriate authorities within the country?
According to managers and experts, a task for Hoi An now is to continue to have urgent restoration projects for its old town. It is necessary that restoration mechanisms be attached to basic restoration principles in order to avoid relics being deformed. In terms of budget for restoring relics, there needs be a mechanism which takes individual relic into consideration so that the supportive level for private relics can even reach 100 percent in stead of the current rate of 75 percent. Appropriate authorities need to enthusiastically call for sponsor from national and international organizations and establish a financial mechanism for travel agents to bring tourists to Hoi An to help contribute to the budget for relic restoration, etc.
According to Ricardo Favis, UNESCO’s cultural consultant, Asia – Pacific region, the maintenance of Hoi An old town needs to strictly abide by international restoration principles which are clearly provided in UNESCO’s world heritage preservation convention. We are responsible for developing a management and preservation mechanism so that future generations of Vietnam and the world will have opportunity to contemplate and learn from this relic.
Ngo Hai Duong
Vietnamese
