Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series

Christina Schwenkel, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Director, Program in Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Riverside

Protracted US bombing of northern Vietnam obliterated the small industrial city of Vinh. In response, an international group of East German and Vietnamese experts proposed to transform Vinh’s Cold War ruins into a model socialist city through visionary planning. Caught between global utopian ambitions and local dystopic conditions, the rebuilt environment fell quickly into obsolescence and ruin. This talk examines the repurposing of architectural models and design practices that circulated between the global socialist North and the decolonizing South to produce an aspirational city of the future in Vinh. The radical rearrangement of space from previous forms of dwelling afforded tenants new sensory, social, and spatial experiences of the city, which were not always desired or welcomed. Residents responded by appropriating decaying modernist forms in ways that alarmed authorities and undermined strategies of urban governance. In the process, ruination emerged as a powerful tool in the struggle over public space and the material conditions of urban life. 

Co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology.