Reality shows for the Independence Palace, the modernist architecture icon of Saigon

The Independence Palace, completed in 1966 by the architect Ngô Viết Thụ, winner of the Prix de Rome, was never inhabited by President Ngo Dinh Diem who requested its construction but by the next President who made him assassinated.  It has become a museum since April 30, 1975 when tanks have crashed through its gates.

Renamed as Reunification Palace, It is now the gathering place for all the city’s major festivities and commemorations. The 40th anniversary of the “30 April 75” in 2015 showed a grandiose spectacle in front of the Palace where thousands of people reenacted the historical scenes with real tanks and trucks.

National mourning on October 2013 was held in the Palace in tribute to General Vo Nguyen Giap, victorious over the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu,

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and France in 2013, the neutral color of the building changed for a video mapping light show. Designed within the shapes of traditional ideograms, the façade favored the mapping of the star of the national flag.

Beyond its historical image, today’s youth praises it for its quality of icon of modernist architecture in Viatnam : the Palace is now deconstructed under new sun lights into a different reality show.