Inanimate statues in Saigon?

Inanimate statues and their dynamic process

Creator: Khâu Thanh Lâm | May 30, 2022 

Saigon has constantly been developing. 

What about those inanimate towering objects in the city such as statues with a long history of sculpture? Have they also continually changed along with the development process of the city? Moreover, what are their roles contributing to the city's constant development? 

This page will invite you to visit the two statues located in the center of Saigon (District 1), respectively: the Saint of Tran Hung Dao [Đức Thánh Trần Hưng Đạo] and Our Lady of Peace [Đức Mẹ Hòa Bình] (Figure 1) to discover their dynamic process (including establishment, removal, and restoration) since the French colonial period in Vietnam.

From that, we will investigate how that dynamic process can contribute to the representation/propagation of the city’s modern development.

Visiting a statue, what is the first thing we should care about? 

First and foremost, it’s the location where the statues are standing. Like when we want to visit someone's house, we all first need to know their geographical address, care about what their place will look like, etc. 

In this term of the statue's location, we want to first address streets associated historically with the existence and dynamic process of that statue. Besides the infrastructure at the underground level, the road system above is the skeleton of the city (Xue et al. 2011, 220).

Now, let’s have our first stop at Me Linh square [Công trường Mê Linh], where the Saint of Tran Hung Dao is waiting for us. 

1.1 Ton Duc Thang Street

Me Linh square is the intersection of five streets/ bones (see Figure 3), Ton Duc Thang Street is the important bone as it crosses the roundabout and defines its half-circle shape. Looking from the above site of Me Linh square as well as its map (Figures 2 and 3), it is pretty clear that Ton Duc Thang Street is separating the city land and the Saigon River. Being the edge line of District 1 and Saigon River (see Figure 4), this street can connect District 2 and District 4 by locating a new Thủ Thiêm 2 bridge and Khánh Hội bridge, respectively at its 2 ends. It is an undeniable fact that this street makes the place of Tran Hung Dao more conspicuous. 

1.2 Dong Khoi Street - the oldest bone

If we have noticed the important bone Ton Duc Thang when arriving at Me Linh square, then we can't help but give attention to Dong Khoi Street where Our Lady of Peace is located at the end of the "bone".

2. If streets are the bones of the city's body, then other formations such as buildings and statues are the cells. 

Then, the statues will share some characteristics as same as the cells. 

2.1 The dynamic process of statues

Similar to the constant change of cells in the human body, statues also involve a dynamic process. Before existing as the current state, like a cell, both statutes have been through a process that involves establishment and replacement. However, different from the natural process of cells, the dynamic process occurred with the nation's historical ups and downs.

Particularly, before the establishment of the Tran Hung Dao statue, there has been five different monuments existed in Me Linh square. Each of the changes (removal, establishment) was associated with a particular historical event in the nation. For instance, the statue of the Trung sister was torn down after the assassination of Dim and Nhu in 1963. Similarly, the statue of Our Lady of Peace became the replacement of the statue of Monsignor Pigneau after the . 

2.2 The artificial uniqueness of statues

Each cell has its different size/ shape and number of specialized functions (Yourgenome 2021), and so do the statues. However, details provided in the statues are not naturally made, but they are artificially created to serve some more specific purposes. 

On the one hand, the statue of Tran Hung Dao, one of the greatest national heroes, has such prominent materials and size (Figure 7) that are outstanding from other statues that used to exist at Me Linh square. Moreover, the intended position of the statue (Figure 8) also illustrates the nation's power by evoking the historical victory.

On the other hand, the statue of Our Lady of Peace located in front of Notre Dame Cathedral aims to serve a religious purpose (Christianity) while at the same time bringing the symbol of peace by holding the globe and the cross.(see Figure 9). However, the past time of the same location, besides the religious purpose of the statue, the feature of the Treaty of Versailles of 1787 (see Figure 10) held in Pigneau's hand intended to remind people to remember the written negotiation between the French military and the Vietnamese territory.

Therefore, investigating a particular statue in a dynamic process involves looking at its historical dynamic process and every single detail associated with that statue. As an artificial object, each of them is created to come after a specific function and different propagation. 

References

Charlie Q. L. Xue, Hailin Zhai & Brian Mitchenere. 2011. "Shaping Lujiazui: The Formation and Building of the CBD in Pudong, Shanghai". Journal of Urban Design 16, no. 2: 209-32, doi: 10.1080/13574809.2011.552705.

Cherry, Haydon. 2019. Down and Out in Saigon: Stories of the Poor in a Colonial City. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Nguyen, Nhung, and Son, Trung. 2016. "Then and now: A touch of French class down Saigon street". VnExpress. Last modified August 3, 2016 (7 June 2022).

Yourgenome. 2014. “What Is a Cell?” Last modified October 8, 2014 (7 June 2022).