Agrovilles, Ngô Viết Thụ
From: David Le <david.micah.le@gmail.com>
Date: 2008/8/29
To: Vsg@u.washington.edu
Dear List,
Does anyone know what role, if any, Ngo Viet Thu played in the design of the agrovilles? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
- David
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From: Edward Miller <Edward.G.Miller@dartmouth.edu>
Date: 2008/8/29
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear David:
Ngo Viet Thu was the designer of the agroville pilot project at Vi Thanh, which was inaugurated in March 1960. Several features of that project are still extant on the site, including an artificial lake with an island and belvedere. Next to the lake is a agroville museum--or. more precisely, a museum celebrating the revolutionary struggle against the agroville program.
According to a profile of Thu in the RVN government-sponsored TIMES OF VIET NAM in 1963, he was the “principal designer” of agrovilles, but I don’t know how many of them he actually designed, other than the first one. See the Times of Viet Nam Magazine, 23 June 1963. David Biggs has studied the implementation of the agroville program extensively, so he might know more about Thu’s role in it.
Ed Miller
Dartmouth College
Department of History
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From: David Biggs <dbiggs@ucr.edu>
Date: 2008/8/29
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
david-
The first official American visit to an agroville was one made by American Ambassador Dubrow and several USOM advisors to the “model” agroville at Vị Thành on April 30, 1960. In this field trip, they noted that while Vietnam's prize winning architect, Ngô Việt Thu, had been involved in the design of a central administrative and shopping area populated with tile-roof, cement buildings and a landscaped park with large, stylish ponds, there was no indication that the farmers, now moved several kilometers from their fields, would manage to make ends meet. One advisor, upon seeing the as yet unfinished tract plans for the settlement, suggested that it resembled a modern American suburban development with a shopping center located in the middle. Besides a new dispensary and maternity clinic, one of the first buildings to be completed in the agroville was a large, open-air market surrounded by streets of cement shop fronts with apartments located above.
best-
david