Auguste Henri Vildieu was the French architectural

adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administration, mostly the management of human resources in an army unit. The term is used in French-speaking armed forces as a non-commission ...

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

while that city was an administrative center for the French

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

. Vildieu constructed several grand European-style buildings for the colonial

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

, including: *the ''Bureaux et Résidences Supérieure'' (including the

Tonkin Palace The State Guest House ( vi, Nhà khách Chính phủ) is a historical monument in Hoàn Kiếm District, Hanoi, Vietnam. It is presently used as a state guest house. The building is representative of French Colonial architecture in French Indochi ...

) * the

Mairie In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

(City Hall) *the Palais de Justice (Supreme Court) *the

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

*the Presidential Palace 1900-1906 (then known as the Palace of the Governor-General of Indochina) *the

Public Works Public works are a broad category of infrastructure projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community. They include public buildings ( municipal buildings, sc ...

Building *the

Hỏa Lò Prison Hỏa Lò Prison (, Nhà tù Hỏa Lò; french: Prison Hỏa Lò) was a prison in Hanoi originally used by the French colonists in Indochina for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. ...

Vildieu may also have been involved with the construction of the local

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

. While Vildieu spent most of his working life designing French buildings in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, he early on designed a Vietnamese building in

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for the 1889 Universal Exposition. This

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

was modeled on the porch of the Pagoda of Quan Yen, and was referred to at the Exposition as the "Palace of Annan and Tonkin".

References

19th-century French architects Year of birth missing Year of death missing {{French Colonial Architecture in Vietnam