All things old China - books, anecdotes, stories, podcasts, factoids & ramblings from the author Paul French

Saigon Preservation Battles #1 – Les Grands Magasins Charner (Saigon Tax Trade Center)

Posted: December 13th, 2014 | No Comments »

The former Les Grands Magasins Charner, or simply GMC, in Saigon building may well go, if developers get their way and the public and preservationists are thwarted. Built in 1880, it was one of the finest examples of architecture from the French Indo-China colonial period left in the city. From the start the building always had slight Indo-Chinoiserie flourishes with a traditional western clock tower topped of by a pagoda-like structure. It was a retail architectural style familiar to the French of the grand magasin/Bon Marche type and stood on the corner of rue Bonard (the old name of Le Loi Street) and rue Charner (the old name of Nguyen Hue Street). In 1942 (when Saigon and Indo-China was run by a collaborationist Vichy French administration) the building was mucked about with a bit – the clock tower taken down and replaced with a GMC banner. In the 1960s it became a high end shopping centre in Communist Vietnam. Though the exterior changed and was further mucked about with the interior was still littered with French decorative touches, wonderful bannisters and French cockerel motifs. There was a campaign to save it, mostly from traders within the complex but it’s gone now – the site will become a skyscraper!