HÀ NỘI Manzi – a space dedicated to contemporary art – will have an unusual pop-up show of architecture starting Friday night.

Entitled A Saga of Unrealised Projects, the display will unveil design models of 24 building projects developed by Nguyễn Hà and her associates at Arb Architects. These unrealised projects have never been brought into being because of different reasons such as abandonment, rejection, and compromises. They are untouched by any modification requested by a second party other than by the architects themselves.

Model of an architectural project developed by Nguyễn Hà and her associates at Arb Architects. — Photo courtesy of Manzi

According to Manzi’s art officer, Linh Lan, the idea of the exhibition comes from a famous yet flamboyant saying of French essayist and philosopher Paul Valéry. He declared. “that which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.”

“Then, what about the things not accepted? Is it probable that there has always been a kind of truth, a particular significance existing in the unaccepted, rejected things? If so, should we (instead of putting them away) take a step back and give them another look?,” Linh Lan said.

The installation of ‘unrealised architecture projects’ at Manzi’s offers an unexpected test, where they play around with created objects, creative practices and creative spaces, to explore the unpredictable outcomes in the absurd juxtaposition of different definitions such as the architect/the artist; architectural space/exhibition room; and a project design model/a work of art.

Architect Nguyễn Hà. — Photo courtesy of Manzi

Nguyễn Hà, who was born in 1980 in Hà Nội, received a full scholarship from the Swiss Government to do an MA in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) after graduating from the Architecture Faculty of the National University of Civil Engineering.

After some time living and working in Switzerland, she returned to Việt Nam in 2010 and opened an architecture practice with two fellow Swiss-trained architects, Laurent Cantalou and Kurt Aellen.

Creativity can be a lonely experimental path, and Hà has confessed to being an extremist who wants to follow that path right to the end. Although not many of her hundreds of design projects have been executed in real life, she feels that the process has been enough for her to challenge herself and unleash her inner creativity through experimenting with architectural models and sketches.

Hà currently lives and works in Hà Nội.

A Saga of Unrealised Projects will be opened at 6.30pm tomorrow night, and on display until August 21 (11am-7pm, Tue-Sun). Manzi Exhibition Space is at 2 Hàng Bún Alley.

The display A Saga of Unrealised Projects is part of Manzi's art programme under the patronage of the Goethe Institute. — VNS