Badin (assembly hall)

Brief information

Ba Dinh Hall is interesting because its significance turned out to be connected not only with the work of parliament, but also with what was discovered after its demolition. It was the old meeting building of the National Assembly of Vietnam on Ba Dinh Square, opposite the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Sessions and other official events were held there, so the place functioned as a state stage facing one of Hanoi’s most symbolic squares.

In 2008, the hall was demolished to clear the site for a new parliament building. But excavations revealed the remains of Thang Long, the old imperial city and predecessor of Hanoi, and construction had to be postponed. Because of this, the site reads differently: beneath the place of modern power, an earlier political center was discovered.

What to notice right away

The original text says almost nothing about the hall’s exterior appearance, so it is more important to look not at decorative details, but at the site’s position and fate. The first point of comparison is the hall’s connection with Ba Dinh Square and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum opposite: the building stood within a space of official memory and state ceremonies. The second detail is the very purpose of the old meeting hall: it was not a background administrative building, but the place where sessions of the National Assembly were held.

The third focus is the trace that appeared only after the building disappeared. The demolition was supposed to make way for a new parliament, but the archaeological remains of Thang Long changed the meaning of the site and delayed construction. So the main contrast here is not between an old and a new facade, but between the vanished hall and the city beneath it that preceded Hanoi.