The former imperial capital, Hué –
its history and that of the An Dinh Palace.

The Origins — Chinese, Cham and Viet

In Central Vietnam, on the sheltered plateau of the Song Huong ('Perfume River'), in a lovely landscape between mountains and the sea lies the former imperial capital, Hué.

In the 3^rd century BC Chinese of the Han Dynasty built a fortress close to what was later to become Hué.

In the 2^nd century AD the Cham founded the city of Kandapurpura on the site of Hué's present arenas and the area remained a province of the Champa kingdom until the 14th century. In 1471 the capital, Vijaya fell under Viet rule.

From then on, Hué's fortunes were irrevocably linked with those of the Nguyen dukes, who long held sway in the south of the country. Under the leadership of enterprising Nguyen Kim, they established their capital in the region at the start of the 17^th century.

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The Nyuyen Dynasty — Hué becomes the imperial capital

In 1637 Nguyen Kim's son, duke Nguyen Hoang built a citadel on the present-day site of Hué and named it Phu Xuân. As the Nguyen's power increased so, too, did the importance and influence of the citadel.

Yet in 1771 the Tây Son revolt drove the Nguyen out of Phu Xuân. It was only 30 years later and thanks to French support that the sole survivor of the Nguyen family, Nguyen Anh was able to re-conquer the city.

When Nguyen Anh secured his rule over the whole of Viet Nam and proclaimed himself Emperor Gia Long of Dai Nam ('the Great South'), he established his capital in Phu Xuân but renamed it Hué, a variation on the word 'hoa' meaning 'harmony'.

Gai Long thus laid the foundations for the powerful Nguyen Dynasty yet he remained always loyal to the French. Most of his successors, Ham Nghi and Dui Tân among them, attempted to thwart France's increasingly adamant claims to power but the French deposed and exiled them. Whilst the French never dared abolish the monarchy completely they made sure that no emperor would ever rise against them again. Dong Khan's son, Khai Dinh, whom the French enthroned in 1916 when he was 31 years old, played the role of puppet ruler better than any of his clan to date. He was blind to reality beyond the walls of his citadel, deaf to the mounting cries of the revolutionary movement and, when bored in his Forbidden City, he would retire to play cards and drink cognac in Cung An Dinh - the An Dinh Palace that he had built in 1918 amidst the colonialists' European-style villas, in extensive grounds on the banks of the An Cuu river, as a summer residence for his eldest son, Boa Dai.

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The French, the Americans, Ho Chi Minh
and a new Vietnam

When Khai Dinh died in 1925, his son Vinh Thuy was crowned under the dynastic name, Bao Dai. Having long since resided at his father's wish in a colonialist's Parisian home, Boa Dai was perfectly prepared for his role in the service of the French. He visited Hué briefly for his father's funeral but then returned to spend a further 7 years in Paris. Only in 1932, at the age of 18, did he accede to the throne that had until then been his only in name.

Yet resistance to French colonial rule and its puppet emperors was growing and, following Ho Chi Minh's foundation of the 'League for an Independent Viet Nam' in 1941, the revolution that had been seething for years finally erupted in 1945.

On the 25^th August 1945 Bao Dai was forced to abdicate. With his mother, Tu Cung, his wife, Nam Phuong, his children and several servants, he left the traditional family residence in the Forbidden City and moved into An Dinh Palace.

In 1954 the Ngo Dinh Diem regime completely expropriated Boa Dai, who subsequently sought exile with his wife and children in France. His mother remained at An Dinh Palace. When the war with America ended in 1975, she relinquished the Palace to the new socialist government and moved into a nearby villa on the An Cuu river, where the few remaining furnishings from An Dinh Palace can still be found today. The emperor's mother, Tu Cung died in Hué in 1980.

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Cung An Dinh — long forgotten,
now rediscovered.

After 1975 the more or less intact Palace was first used to accommodate the numerous people of Hué rendered homeless by the devastating war with America.

Until 2002 An Dinh Palace remained in the hands of the regional government and was used for various purposes, as a trade union cultural centre, for example.

In early 2002 it was handed over to the Hué Monuments Conservation Centre (HMCC, founded in 1982) and extensive restoration of the Palace and grounds began in March. The Palace facades and a part of the grounds were finished by June, and Cung An Dinh was ceremoniously re-opened during the Hué Cultural Festival.

It was decided that same year to also restore the sumptuously decorated Palace interior and a Vietnamese-German joint venture was launched to this end. Work began in May 2003 and is still in progress today.

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Architectural history — more gaps than facts

Source texts about Cung An Dinh and images from its chequered history are sadly quite rare. Historical documents relating to the Nguyen dynasty were archived in the Imperial Library that was almost completely razed by fire during an American offensive in 1968. The photos shown here are held by the HMCC archive.

The Palace was built of brick on granite foundations and has a steel girder and pre-cast concrete roof that was subsequently clad in traditional, square clay tiles. The various mortar types used principally consist of sand, lime, cement and additional protein sizes.

A third storey was added to the Palace in the 1920s, along with additional rooms on its northern side and a theatre immediately to its rear. The theatre and Palace shared interconnecting spaces at ground level and various terraces, interlinked by external staircases. The theatre was severely damaged in the American war however, and no longer exists. Nor have photographs and architectural plans ever been found, with one exception, a photograph of a group of visitors in the theatre foyer. An archaeological dig unearthed the theatre foundations in 2003 and granite paths now mark their course on the grassed-over site.

Visitors entering the grounds of Cung An Dinh by the northern gate (which is now usually the case), are confronted by the bare, inharmonious northern facade of the Palace: something that one was never intended to see, in fact, and now visible only because the theatre was destroyed. The HMCC has considered perhaps rebuilding a theatre in order to close the unsightly gap. As documentation is unavailable, a reconstruction of the original is out of the question, and approximating its original size probably the best that might be done.

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