VietNamNet Bridge –  Hue is proposing to set up a street of museums and exhibition centres to serve the cultural needs of locals and visitors to the former imperial capital city.

Colourful culture: Exhibition of kites at Hue Museum of Culture, which resides in a French colonial building.

Phan Tien Dung, director of the local department of culture, told a recent meeting of the province People’s Council that the department had a plan to turn Le Loi Street into a museum road.

With the plan, the existing Museum of Culture will be rearranged and will get more Champa antiques, which were collected from around the province, to make the Hue Museum of Fine Arts.

The museum, which is sheltered within two unique French colonial buildings that are next to each other, would be one of the key museums of the proposed street, together with the Le Ba Dang Art Museum and the Lieu Quan Buddhist Centre.

Le Ba Dang Art Museum gathers prominent works of the late artist Le Ba Dang, who lived and worked in France most of his life. The museum resides in another beautiful French colonial building on the street.

In the recent years, Lieu Quan has been a busy place for Buddhist-related activities in the city. Almost all key Buddhist exhibitions take place at the centre.

The street was once full of French colonial buildings lying beside the poetic section of the local Huong (Perfume) River. Many of the original villas were replaced by new buildings, resulting in deep regrets among the locals and those people who love Hue around the country.

With the new plan, locals expect the remaining French colonial villas to be protected.

According to the department, the old colonial building that currently serves as the working place of the Hue Festival Centre, who organise the biennial cultural event and festivals at craft villages, will become a new museum for the sculptural works of late artist Diem Phung Thi.

Siting next to the centre is a great sculptural work depicting patriotic Phan Boi Chau, who pioneered a movement against French colonialism. Tens of newly-made sculptural works by international artists given to Hue will be displayed in a park nearby as part of the plan.

The department also wants to build a new museum for the history of local embroidery.

Running parallel to Nguyen Dinh Chieu walking street, the proposed museum street has given hope for making Hue into an even more culturally profound destination to visit. However, locals expects the time between the plan on paper and practice on the ground to be very short.

VNS