MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS (BAO TANG MY THUAT)
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Remarkable for its Art Deco and Art Moderne architecture, magnificent Cham sculptures and Oc-Eo remains.
The Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts is housed in old buildings designed from 1929 onwards by the French architect Rivera for the company of a wealthy Chinese mining family, the Hui. The style combines Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modern Art, integrates many local symbolic elements (99 windows for luck and eternity) and spatial principles derived from feng shui. In 1987, the buildings were converted into a Fine Arts Museum, which was officially inaugurated on 28 March 1989. This comprises three adjacent exhibition areas in three buildings. On May 30, 2015, the museum inaugurated a third exhibition hall at 54 Nguyên Thai Binh Street, dedicated to handicrafts: stone arts, ceramic arts, wood arts and copper arts.
Giving priority to official revolutionary art, the museum gives a very small part to real Vietnamese art, which is regrettable. This museum is especially visited for its colonial architecture, the magnificent Cham sculptures and the remains of Oc-Eo. As an anecdote, the museum includes a room that is said to be haunted by the ghost of a daughter of the former owner, who suffers from leprosy and whose "ghost is usually encountered at night. He then wanders through one of the corridors of the building dressed in white, his long hair loose, or cries in his room". The lighting of the building benefited from the expertise of the Public Lighting Department of the City of Lyon.
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La collection est superbe : plus de 20 000 peintures et sculptures réalisées par des artistes vietnamiens.