Being established since 1698, Saigon is currently the biggest city of Vietnam. Also, it becomes the fastest economic growth in Vietnam. Today, like many other cities of developing countries in the world, Saigon is facing with numerous contradictions between the development and reservation in terms of its cultural characteristics. The period 1859 - 1975 has been remarked with many urban planning projects planned by French experts, American planners and Vietnamese architects afterward… However, most of them have not been done absolutely; nothing was based on any theories of both urban planning and architecture. The main reasons are identified as: (1) the colonial rule demands; (2) wars; and (3) the population increasing. In the opposite side, the lively growth of Saigon has given her morphology as a colorful and lively pictures with many Far East cultural characters. One of the main factors which lead to the un-derstanding and could keep both sides of this issue is the Urban - Architecture morphology, which was formed from her historical process. This paper is the first step to identify the actual limits of urban design and architectural theories in the development journey of this city.
Volume 11 | 08-Special Issue
Pages: 895-903