The Thin Houses of Hanoi's Old Quarter — Epoche A2
In the Old Quarter of Hanoi the houses are strangely thin. I paced out three shopfronts this morning on one street: three steps wide, then four, then three again. Behind each of those narrow fronts the building runs back, room after room, for thirty metres or more. The reason usually given is tax. Plots were measured and taxed by how much street they took up, so a narrow front was a cheap front. A family who wanted more space could not buy it sideways; they bought it backwards. I asked to see inside one, and the owner walked me through. The front room was the shop, open to the pavement, selling paper lanterns. Behind it a small courtyard, open to the sky, letting light and air into the middle of the house. Then a room with a table and a television. Then another courtyard, smaller. Then a kitchen, then a store room, then the back wall. From the street I would have guessed the building was one room deep. Nobody built these houses to be strange. They built them to a rule about the street, and the rule was about width. The shape that visitors notice today is the shadow of an old measurement, taken at the front door.