Review | Anh-Linh Ngo at the 2017 November Talks in Stuttgart

For the third Wednesday evening in a row, only a few scattered seats were available in the lower lecture hall of the University of Stuttgart when Professor Peter Cheret announced the next speaker of the 2017 November Talks series: Anh-Linh Ngo of the well-known Berlin-based architecture magazine ARCH+.

Ngo studied architecture at RWTH Aachen and was a DAAD scholarship recipient at the University of Newcastle in Great Britain. During his studies, in addition to his practical work for architecture offices, he was already contributing to ARCH+ on a regular basis. Together with Nikolaus Kuhnert, Anh-Linh Ngo now manages the editorial staff in Berlin that he originally joined in 2003. A native of Vietnam, he also serves as the curator of the discussion series "ARCH+ features" and the exhibition project "ARCH+ displays".

At the start of his lecture, Anh-Linh Ngo talked about war and people seeking refuge in other countries. People who have no future in their home as a result of violence and destruction. People who have to leave their country because there is no other way out. But Ngo, who was also forced to flee his home country, quickly made clear that this evening would not be about theory. Instead, it was a presentation of projects from Vietnamese architecture offices to which the editorial staff of ARCH+ had dedicated two issues.

With this serious introduction, however, Ngo wanted his audience to think about the subject of hybridisation, which was a theme that continued throughout the lecture. During his presentation, Anh-Linh Ngo emphasised that the projects should not be labelled as "Vietnamese architecture" or be perceived as such. He made this clear with the first example, a school in Vietnam's Võ Nhai District designed by the Hanoi-based architecture office 1+1>2. Local materials, such as bricks and bamboo, the careful handling of the conditions on site and the interplay between interior and exterior made the project unique. It quickly became apparent that no Asian ornaments or symbols were part of the design. It is a project that could not just be implemented in Vietnam but also in other warm locations. Using additional designs of the office, Anh-Linh Ngo showed how the architects dealt with the climate and how important natural light and ventilation are. The "Ta Phin" cultural centre and the "Cam Thanh" house of communication illustrate why. Anh-Linh Ngo also presented works from H&P Architects, such as the "Blooming Bamboo Home", the "Forming Kindergarten" of Vo Trong Nghia Architects, the residential building and office designed by a21 studio, as well as projects from LVHQ, Tropical Space and Sanuki Daisuke Architects. All projects were covered extensively, complete with photos and designs, in the two issues of ARCH+.

Throughout the evening, different building types were shown, as well as approaches on how to deal with existing conditions. Still, it becomes apparent how important the exchange between cultures is – to be open to the "other" – and how it is essential to allow a so-called hybridisation of society.

Ngo's concluding remarks also made this clear: "(…) not dealing with a stylistic architecture that believes it is creating an independent Vietnamese architecture. Instead (an architecture) that, as a result of societal, political and economic conditions develops into something that is part of an international debate and also provides a context for discourse that is important to us as a magazine as well as very important to me personally. What we were trying to accomplish with these issues was basically to show that we are heading into a dead end if we once again start to divide that which is 'other' and that which is 'ours' and to prove what we can accomplish if we allow these exchanges and types of hybridisation."

Interview with Anh-Linh Ngo

The Video can be found on our YouTube-Channel.

November Talks

The successful “November Reihen”, a lecture series on contemporary architecture, has been funded by the non-profit Sto Foundation since its launch in 2006. Stuttgart, Graz, Milan, Paris, Prague and London are the six venues . Exciting work reports by renowned architects can be experienced there.