Alexandra van der Essen

Documenting modernist architecture with a focus on Southern Vietnam.

My research has been presented at Harvard GSD and accepted at the World Congress of Architects (UIA 2026) and DOCOMOMO International (2026). Published in C20 Society, The Modernist, and Sabato magazine.

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Modernist house with geometric tile facade above a walled entrance and chain-link fence, with a Vietnamese pedestrian walking past

Writings

Southern Vietnamese Modernism

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Photography

Southern Vietnamese Modernism

Southern Vietnamese yellow modernist shophouse with brise-soleil, street art graffiti, Ho Chi Minh City
A random street in Ho Chi Minh City, District 9
Weathered modernist Vietnamese shophouse with cantilevered balconies and vertical fin details above a street-level shop, Ho Chi Minh City
Modernist shophouses in Cho Lon, Ho Chi Minh City
Tropical modernist architecture with brise-soleil screen, Mekong Delta Vietnam
A random street in Ho Chi Minh City, District 9

Brutalism

Brutalist residential tower at the Barbican Estate in London, showcasing rough-textured concrete, sculptural balconies, and modular vertical geometry
The grand Barbican Estate residential complex, London
Bibliothèque des Sciences, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium A brutalist library in Louvain-la-Neuve, showcasing bold architectural angles in concrete.
Bibliothèque des Sciences, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Alexandra Road Estate, London A housing estate in London designed with brutalist architectural principles, featuring tiered layouts and raw concrete details.
Alexandra Road’s brutalist housing estate, London

Contemplation

Rooftop pool with sculptural concrete forms at Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation, overlooking Marseille mountains at dusk
Sunset on the rooftop of La Cité Radieuse by Le Corbusier, Marseille
Rooftop pool and Brutalist concrete architecture at Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille at dusk
Sunset on the rooftop of La Cité Radieuse by Le Corbusier, Marseille
Framed architectural view through layers of exposed concrete at the Barbican Estate, revealing windows, plants, and modular brutalist textures
Artificial concrete window at The Barbican, London
Brutalist courtyard at the Barbican Estate in London, with heavy concrete columns, soft reflections on wet brick pavement, and a glimpse of warm interior light
The grand Barbican Estate residential complex, London
Abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Gyeongju, South Korea, combining vernacular Korean roof forms with minimalist modernist structure and soft daylight
Abandoned gas station on the outskirts of Gyeongju, South Korea 경주시

Streets of Asia

Selling Apples in Chinatown, Bangkok (ถนนเยาวราช) A snapshot of street life in Chinatown, Bangkok, capturing a vendor selling apples between cars.
Selling apples between the cars. Chinatown, Bangkok. ถนนเยาวราช
Modernist shophouses in Bugis Street, Singapore, with pastel façades and spiral staircases creating rhythmic vertical patterns along a narrow pedestrian street
Swirling stairs in Bugis Street. Singapore
Street scene in Haebangchon, Seoul, showing a compact urban corner store beneath dense electrical lines and vibrant signage, contrasting human motion against static architecture
Work hard, walk hard. Haebangchon, Seoul. 해방촌
Neon-lit mosque in Châu Đốc, Vietnam, blending Islamic architectural motifs with local modernist concrete forms, illuminated by green fluorescent outlines at dusk
Neon-lit mosque for the Cham minorities. Châu Đốc, Vietnam
Modernist Christian church façade in Cần Thơ, Vietnam, framed by street activity and motorbikes, juxtaposing minimalist architecture with vivid urban motion and color harmony
Modernist church and lucky color coordination. Cần Thơ, Vietnam

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In the Mekong Delta, the modernist dialect isn’t a decorative pattern. It’s a type of house: a villa behind a porch on four columns, small pair or trios of fins holding up the beam above, and a decorative frieze on the roof. The last photo is a slight exception, where the left side of the porch is closed off rather than open. Where a Saigon brise-soleil stays straight, in Quy Nhơn the concrete lines loosen into intersecting swirls, perhaps an abstraction of clouds. This distinctive shape can also be found in surrounding towns like An Nhơn. In Phú Yên, modernist façades are riddled with ventilation holes: triangles, hearts, arrows, more triangles, and in one house, against all odds, a helicopter. The Bình Định Provincial Library in Quy Nhon, designed by architect Phạm Thanh Trì and built between 1986 and 1997, according to the Vietnamese modernism Facebook group. The interior atrium is spectacular, and the building has that signature đá rửa surface throughout. This shophouse in Saigon’s District 11 has a huge inverted diamond in concrete on its façade, with small sparkling lines around it, like a naive drawing. I wonder if it was once a jewelry store, or if the diamond meant something else entirely. Looking closer there are small engravings too: a vase with flowers, a star, an abstract shape. I like how the facade is carefully coordinated in yellow and pink, with small colorful touches throughout. Relief lettering on modernist shophouses in Mỹ Tho. Along Phan Thanh Giản market street, many shops use 3D letters for their shop signage. I haven’t seen this with as much frequency on one street in Vietnam, and it sits somewhere between the vintage painted signs that have almost disappeared and the infamous Cooper Black printed shopfronts that now engulf facades across the country. A villa in Biên Hòa combining đá rửa, brick and stone. I like how different these materials are, yet together in warm hues they create a harmonious palette. The house also features interlocking diamond shapes engraved into the facade, very typical in Vietnam: you find them on plenty of buildings, even gas station fences. « Crazy Van » is probably the architect behind this modernist villa in Saigon, now converted into a kindergarten, repainted over the years from rainbow to pink to pastel blue. You can see the evolution on Google Maps. When I asked a teenager in Mỹ Tho if I could photograph his family’s house, he said « Of course, bro! » He told me later that he learned English mostly on Twitch and Reddit, which explains the bro...!