Đường Lâm Heritage

Đường Lâm might be the one-and-only village in Vietnam where age-old houses built of laterite stones could be seen. It’s almost everything related to people’s daily life is built of laterite and mud. The stone, when underground is soft but it become hard when put to sunshine and rain.

Photo: Nguyễn Đăng Bảo

The exploited rocks have to be put outdoors before construction. The longer it ages, the harder and harder it becomes. Laterite used to build houses, roads, pond-steps, wells…. It’s both long-lasting materials and decorative.

Unlike garden-houses in Huế where it’s seen as reserved as the people’s characters, houses in Đường Lâm look more open and modest as the northern farming villages. All houses are built in harmony with wood, in style of Chinese letter Môn (gate). It means there’s a main house and side ones as wings. The roofs are in carves and covered with shoe-shaped tiles. The gates are built in Gothic-style. Each house is also an altar of a family line. Houses in Đường Lâm are believed to be hundred–years-old, since Lê and Nguyễn Dynasties and these houses can be found in Đông Sàng, Mông Phụ, Cam Thịnh villages. There’s a small road between houses that help to make the scene more artistic and age-old. It’s very comfortable to live in such houses due to the building-materials that make it warm in winter and cool and airy in summer.

Laterites become a part of life in Đường Lâm. If the people in Hội An take pride in their ancient town, Hanoi in their old quarters, Đường Lâm people are proud of their old houses built of laterite.

                                                                                 VIỆT ANH