Hue Imperial Museum

Long An palace museum in the outer precincts of the citadel.

 
The museum now occupying Long An palace is definitely a sight not to be missed. Not that the collection is all that spectacular, but the building itself gives you the best idea of what it must have been like to be a king, or emperor as the case may be. You can stand just in front of the small throne, and look down through the forest of columns supporting the roof, out into the courtyard of trees and the odd cannon. It gives you the idea of being in a forest. I realized here that all those modernist architects who sought to create vast clear spaces free of columns had probably never experienced spaces such as this. The many columns literally define the space. My teachers were wrong. So what else is new?

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