STREETS IN HISTORIC CITY CENTER: CASE STUDY OF TRANG TIEN STREET WITHIN HOAN KIEM LAKE AREA IN HANOI CITY CENTER

Abstract

As a capital of a new emerging economy in Asia, Hanoi, like many other capital cities in Asia have a willing to catch up with the prosperity of the West leading to more whole sale redevelopment and most of them have little regard for the value of their built heritage until it is almost gone. Interestingly, Hanoi still has its ancient urban context that has existed hundreds of year mixed with new French urban context. This kind of mixed context and overlapping each other creating an interesting city center which comprises both rural-style activities and building in the 36-street old quarter and the image of linear boulevard, squares in the French old colonial quarter. The charming of the city center has been always a inspiration for many art work like literature, poem, music, painting, movie and city center has become an essential part of culture and spirit life of Hanoi people. Within a cultural context of city center, streets always play a very important role. The perception of streets as well as of activities along streets conveys messages of culture of the place, sense of place. In the retail revolution and the invasion of international branch into the city, the streetscape and street life in the city center tend to become a blur image of culture, a generic city. And if in the end, our culture is in fact everything that help us make sense of the world we live in (Franco Bianchini, 1988) This study aims to discover the streets, theirs identity and their potential within cultural context of historical city center of Hanoi. Then this study will intensively investigate the case study of Trang Tien Street as a distinctive street which is the blended of old and new form, and hopefully it will be a typical model for other conservation and redevelopment process in the city center.