[S01.1] Non-religious Spiritual space for social cohesion in Vietnam

Research methodology

The major emphasis of the report is to examine the subjective perception of the users about the space and exploring the way a spiritual space can manipulate the feelings of people. Therefore, this research will use the interpretive approach based on qualitative data collection consisting of in-depth interviews and case studies.   

The nature of the online interview will be semi-structured with a small number of Vietnamese who were born and grown up in Vietnam. This data collection method will have to meet the requirements of the research target by asking a series of predetermined but open-ended questions. Meanwhile, this method will also give the researcher more space to be flexible in following topical trajectories in the conversation when she thinks it is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the topic.

Non- religious spiritual space for collective memory is a new territory in Vietnamese architectural perception. Despite there is a number of religious buildings and some national memorials, museums or cultural centres built in Vietnam in the last forty years, most of them have placed themselves too much on the religious or political purposes rather than social concerns. Therefore, the first case study will be a brief analyse about the emotional connection between architecture and collective memory of Ground Zero Memorial in America and Jewish Museum Berlin in Germany. Both these projects are designed by American-Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind, who is well-known for the contemporary museum and commemorative projects that highlight the emotional engagement between the people and the architectural space. This part will focus on the symbolic meaning of their concepts: using the void in recalling traumatic memories. The final outcome of this step is to generalize a spiritual approach to designing a new construction for collective/cultural memory.

The second case study is about the shared spaces that are utilizing an unintentional function, constituting collective memory from personal recollection. As the result of this process, they are gradually transformed into “informal” social space. Given the profound changes in the social pattern in Vietnam, there are two typical informal public spaces in each period of time: the well and banyan tree in the Vietnamese village and the laneway in Vietnamese urban cities. The target of this research is to identify and understand the common behaviour pattern of the Viet in community participation.