Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
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54<br />
<strong>Landscape</strong> as Urban Structure: the<br />
Case of Cantho, Vietnam<br />
Kelly Shannon<br />
KU Leuven, <strong>Department</strong> of Architecture,<br />
Urbanism and Planning (ASRO), Architecture and<br />
Urbanism Research Group (OSA), Kasteelpark<br />
Arenberg 1, B-3001, Heverlee, Belgium<br />
(e-mail: kelly.shannon@asro.kuleuven.be)<br />
Abstract<br />
Cantho and its surroundings attest to an alternative<br />
concept of an indigenous modernity, based upon<br />
cultural hybridization and absorption of multiple foreign<br />
influences. The impressive transformation of a regional<br />
landscape into a colonized urban nature by the French<br />
was succeeded by a modernization of colonization by<br />
the Americans. Yet, the impositions did not cancel out<br />
the essence of the region’s indigenous modernity <strong>–</strong><br />
namely that of an intensive relationship of landscape<br />
and urbanity. Today, the Mekong delta’s indigenous<br />
urban identity is threatened by ex-nihilo urbanization.<br />
Modern master planning is in direct contradiction<br />
with the native modernity. The late-Fordist visions for<br />
Cantho <strong>–</strong> replete with large-scale investment and tabula<br />
rasa city building are at least half (if not one) a century<br />
too late. This paper will distill the layered narratives<br />
of Cantho and present a series of cartographies and<br />
interpretative analysis which in turn lead to alternative<br />
scenarios for the rapidly urbanizing city. The hypothesis<br />
is that the urbanization can continue to work with<br />
the existing logics of the landscape as opposed to<br />
against them in the drive towards modernization.<br />
Key words<br />
Cantho, Vietnam, urbanization, landscape.<br />
Harnessing the Potential of a Liquid Geography<br />
Cantho (fig. 1) is a thriving city in Vietnam’s southern<br />
region of the Mekong Delta. Unlike the north and center<br />
of the country, the region has only been occupied by<br />
Vietnamese for approximately three centuries. South<br />
Vietnam (called Nam Bo) was known as a frontier region<br />
with a rich liquid geography: ‘A largely waterlogged world<br />
of black mud and mangrove trees, bordered by thick tropical<br />
forests where the land rose away from the flooded<br />
plain. Drainage canals had only slowly begun to ensure<br />
that some areas were protected from the annual floods<br />
that came with the rainy season and the steady rise of<br />
the Mekong’s level, its volume swollen both by the rains<br />
and by the melting of snows in faraway Tibet’ (Osborne<br />
2000:21).<br />
The region’s landscape was the primary determinant in<br />
its urban structure. In the early feudal era, the swampy<br />
area of Nam Bo was transformed into fertile plains for<br />
wet paddy cultivation. Settlements developed linearly,<br />
following the alluvial, non-salted high-land banks of rivers<br />
and canals. Villages advanced following the construction<br />
of the canal system. Unlike other parts of Vietnam (due<br />
to strict urbanization regulations), the population of the<br />
south was allowed to freely occupy land, motivated by<br />
the possibility to cultivate new lands. Market cities were<br />
established along the natural waterways and trade flourished.<br />
A network of market places, transient stations for<br />
traders, service stations for the repair and maintenance<br />
of boats and supply of fresh water and areas for rice<br />
processing (oriented towards export) was established <strong>–</strong><br />
many of which were floating on the inter-connected<br />
waterways. The delta has been called ‘modern by nature’<br />
with a geographically amenable to the commodity<br />
economy and international trade which easily accommodated<br />
cultural hybridization (Taylor 2001). In pre-colonial<br />
times, the Mekong Delta was a thriving hub of regional<br />
commerce, a major exporter of rice and a place where<br />
merchant ships clustered in search of profitable cargo<br />
(Li and Reid 1993). From the feudal era through colonial<br />
times and until present day, there has been a regimented<br />
and strictly governed policy of public works and land<br />
reclamation to, on the one hand, increase land productivity<br />
and, on the other hand, to create settlement in an<br />
organized manner <strong>–</strong> as ‘agricultural colonies’ (dinh dien)<br />
and ‘military colonies’ (don dien).<br />
In the mid-18th century, Cantho was established as a<br />
regional center due to its strategic location at the confluence<br />
of the Hau (lower branch of the mighty Mekong)<br />
and Cantho Rivers. At 100 km from the East Sea (also<br />
known as the South China Sea), it was far enough away<br />
from the direct vagaries of coastal habitation, yet close<br />
enough to function as a competitive entrepôt city. Thus,<br />
Cantho was established as Tay Do (the ‘Western Capital’)<br />
and was an important crossroads between areas<br />
deep in the delta and Saigon. During the colonial era (in<br />
1876 the entire Mekong Delta fell under control of the<br />
French), massive capital investment by the government<br />
of Indochina was expended for infrastructure: railways,<br />
port facilities, roadways, bridges (known as Eiffel ponts)<br />
and the massive irrigation and transport canal system of<br />
the Mekong Delta <strong>–</strong> specifically directed at the promotion<br />
of commercial agriculture. The French radically transformed<br />
Vietnam’s lower Mekong delta from scarcely-populated<br />
swamp into the granary of Vietnam and a bustling<br />
heartland of commercial export agriculture (Taylor<br />
2001:6). From 1890-1936, 1,360 kilometers of main<br />
canals and 2,500 kilometers of auxiliary canals were dug<br />
by a combined effort of machines and manual labor <strong>–</strong> in<br />
addition to 3,000 kilometers of inter-provincial land routes<br />
between 1880-1913 (Nguyen Quang Vinh 1996:46). Prior