Tube houses dominate the old quarter of the Vietnamese capital

Often, several buildings of this type live next to each other and live in them for two or three generations.

Reuters

Hanoi's ultra-narrow, ultra-deep tubular houses dot the old quarter of the Vietnamese capital, a massive, densely populated city of nine million people.

The front of the apartment is barely four meters wide, and some are so narrow that two people can barely stand side by side.

Several buildings of this type are often adjacent to each other, and sometimes two or three generations live in them.

The first tube dwellings, called Nha Aung in Vietnamese, are believed to have appeared in the capital at the end of the 19th century, when villagers seeking to sell precious metals, aromatic herbs, or traditional paraphernalia began to settle in or gather in the city centre.

"The space has been limited since then, which is why this narrow architectural style was born," said Tran Quoc Pao, senior lecturer at the National University of Civil Engineering.

This architectural model is still common in Hanoi today, and architects call modern constructions of this type (terracing).

The academic said, "This house model is indispensable for an urban engineer (today)... The adjoining houses are a mixture of traditional and modern housing," noting that it is also found in a number of other Vietnamese cities.

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