Hue’s
Garden Houses
The garden houses are a unique feature of Hue. The houses
are traditional, privately owned, and set in attractive
formal gardens. Some have connections with the old Royal
Imperial Court. Hue traditional architecture has long been
close associated with the natural environment. The garden
houses reflect this association. Each is highly individual
- house and garden, people and scenery, plants, clouds and
water co-exist and blend with each other in a harmonious
context.
Nearly all the garden
houses have direct links with the Imperial Court. Some are
descendents of royalty or mandarins, others received patronage
from the royal family.
The garden houses are an important
feature in Vietnam’s cultural landscape. Not only are they
old and attractive, but also invaluable resources for understanding
the practical applications of the ancient sciences that
governed their construction. Even in Hue, very few remain
intact, and those that survive do so solely because of the
Vietnamese tradition of the beliefs and rituals of ancestor
worship.
Tradition says that the house
cannot be sold out of the family if the links to the ancestors
are to be maintained, but rocketing land values have increased
the value of the properties to astronomic levels. As time
passes, the power of tradition grows weaker, and the temptation
for succeeding generations to capitalise on the asset grows
stronger.
For example, the present occupant
of the An Hien is the owner’s grandson and is already advanced
in years. His wife is currently resident in France. Their
eldest son lives in California, their daughter is an MBA
and works in London, and another son lives with his mother.
All return for Tet each year to worship and maintain the
continuity of the ancestral line, but the bond of kinship
that sustains the family is strained by distance. One or
two generations hence might see them break altogether.
Recently, the owner of Ty Ba
Trang garden house died, and his successors decided to turn
the house and garden into a large cafe. The former owner
was the famous Professor Nguyen Huu Ba, a renowned musician,
who made the house a museum of Hue’s traditional music,
and blended the elements of song and melody with the design
of the garden and the architecture of the house. Sadly,
the intangible knowledge and wisdom stored in the garden
house, and the insights into a past way of life, are now
lost forever.
The owners of the garden houses
receive no extra benefits for opening up their houses and
acting as guides. In each case, their motivation is to preserve
the traditions and culture of the past by making their homes
accessible to interested visitors. We usually include a
visit to at least one garden house for all our tours in
Hue, and strongly encourage our guests to make a donation
to the house owner to help with maintaining his or her property.
