The Ho Chi Minh City Post will consult experts about ways to fix the new coating of the Saigon Central Post Office building which has come under fire as it is considered too bright compared to the original color.

Dang Thi Nga, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Post that manages the Saigon Central Post Office edifice, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday that she will source expert opinions to find a new color for the building.  

“We were negligent when choosing the color without consulting experts first,” Nga admitted.

One of the city’s most prominent icons and tourist attractions, the Saigon Central Post Office was constructed by a French company in 1891 and is rich in French architecture elements.

The structure, located at No. 2 Cong Xa Paris Street in District 1, has been undergoing a major revamp since August last year, the first such restoration after 40 years.

A Ho Chi Minh City newspaper cited Nguyen Thi Thu Van, vice director of the Ho Chi Minh City Post, as saying late last year that the ongoing restoration work is the first to have been done on the building since 1975.

The revamp is expected to be completed in time for the Lunar New Year celebration in February.

The facelift mostly consists of applying a new layer of paint with a brighter shade of yellow and repairing the roof and walls which have been dripping and scaling over years of use.

However, the building’s new yellow has met with criticisms from the public, architects, and artists who complained the color – which has been applied on most of the edifice’s surface – is too bright and intense for the old, French-style building.

On Thursday, Truong Kim Quan, director of the Relic Preservation Center under the city’s Department of Culture and Sports, told Tuoi Tre that the Ho Chi Minh City Post has yet to ask for permission from the People’s Committee for the restoration work, as per the law. 

For her part, Nga explained that she did not know that the restoration has to be approved by the People’s Committee.

“This is a big oversight and a lesson for me,” she said.

Solutions

Nga said she will contact the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Sports for help with expert advice on solutions to repair the current color and a search for a replacement more similar to the original yellow.

The new color will be piloted on a part of the building which has not been painted with the controversial yellow.

“I am grateful to all comments that have been published in the press so far. They show the public’s care for the building,” Nga expressed.

She also added that the management board has suffered stress and face many difficulties while restoring the building.

A bright color was chosen when fading was taken into account, Nga said, adding a light color was ruled out because it would be hard for any repainting in the future when the color pales.

Moreover, the restoration process has been going on mostly at night because the post office still operates in daytime.

Seasoned artist Uyen Huy, chair of the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association, said the only way to fix the current too bright color is choosing another shade and apply it on the edifice.

In his experience, a color will look brighter when it is applied on a real structure than on a sample.

So if one wants a color that looks quite similar to the building’s original yellow, they should make the color a little darker, Huy suggested.

The original color of the building could be obtained by simply darkening the current yellow color, he elaborated.

Huy noted that the color of the walls should match with that of the edifice’s doors and windows.

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