Socialist Palimpsests in Urban Vietnam

After the end of the war in Vietnam, socialist experts from around the world descended on the heavily bombed country to aid in the reconstruction of its demolished industry and infrastructure. Today, these material relics of socialist assistance reveal a dynamic landscape of urban design and building technology transfers. This essay examines the resulting global infrastructure-scape in Vinh City, central Vietnam, by focusing on two successive periods of urban destruction and renewal during the wars of independence against France and the United States. In the first period of socialist urbanization (1954–1964), the author examines international construction projects and efforts to transform the leveled township and its colonial ruins into a major industrial center. In the second period, after the end of the air war in 1973, the author analyzes the full-scale redesign and reconstruction of the city with the assistance of East Germany To better understand how these layered architectural histories continue to resonate in the lives of urban residents today, the author draws on the notion of the urban palimpsest to bring attention to the practices through which socialist constructions take on new use and meaning in a market economy, though often in unintended ways