Someone explained to me once that there was a time (and there is no doubt still a place) in Vietnam when material wealth was indicated by the material of your house: the movement was from thatch to galvanized tin to concrete. Trees. Pleasantly seedy (sometimes) and dark and cool (if damp) concrete.
Not so much in the cities any more. Urbanization in the form of glass and concrete has arrived.
In the sweltering and blanching noontime heat, here is a representative street in Ho Chi Minh City, a couple stories, a combination of home and shop, with the newish Bitexco Financial Tower in the background. Sixty-eight storeys, three basements, the fourth tallest building in Vietnam, the tallest (for a while) in Ho Chi Minh City. A multi-use building with office space, food court, restaurants, movie theatres, restaurants, night clubs, and the Saigon Skydeck offering 360 degree view of Ho Chi Minh City for a ten dollar fee.
A heliport.
Rather than echo the local French architecture, the inspiration for the Bitexco Tower's shape was Vietnam's national flower, the lotus, but I have yet to understand that inspiration. What part looks like a lotus?
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