Urban mosaic. The gateway of Hanoi

Since its inauguration in the early 20th century, Hanoi Railway Station has always played an important role as a major transportation hub of Hanoi through ups and downs, through wars, struggles, as well as reconstruction and development. When Vietnam carried out economic reform in the 80s, the rapid economic growth brought about the rapid change of cities. Poor management that has failed to keep pace with the urbanization and population boom has created the messy cityscape we see today, the infrastructure of the Hanoi Railway Station and the neighboring area have seriously degraded, resulting in the decay of the urban and social environment affecting the lives of its citizens. In an age when rail transport, with a lack of investment for many years, has been suffering fierce competition of more efficient types of transportation such as intercity-buses and aviation, come along with the emergence of new hubs in the inner city, the station is gradually becoming obscured on the city’s transportation map. The vision of Hanoi Station Area is proposed as an urban interchange center of Hanoi City and northern Vietnam, with commercial and economic competitiveness with vital people’s livelihoods and harmonized cultural and natural properties. In future, Hanoi Station area will be a main gateway as well as an urban center of a capital city, in terms of transport, commercial and business, culture and amenity. How to adapt it? How to cure a sick neighborhood and restore its inherent position, and how to manage its urban transition and conflicting developments? To address these issues, improvement of environment and preserving natural resources are considered as well as repairing urban fabric, culture and social growth as the significant characteristics of a city. These characteristics as the different pieces of mosaic meet and collide at the point of the project, the main gateway into the city.