Coming to Vietnam we would never even think that you can discover there ”crazy ” buildings inspired by a Catalan architect, Antonio Gaudi. Feeling for a moment like in Barcelona, and what’s more, sleeping in such a climate, or drinking beer in a ‘’fairy tale cafe’’ is really ‘something’! In the city of Da Lat, which turned out to be the most unlucky one for us (which we will write about shortly), we could feel a little satisfaction in being right there and it was thanks to the so-called Crazy House (Hang Nga Guesthouse) and 100 Roofs Cafe / Maze Bar!

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Let’s start with the guesthouse called ‘’Crazy House’’. It was designed and built by the Vietnamese architect Đặng Việt Nga, the daughter of Ho Chi Minh’s successor, Truong Chinh, who ruled Vietnam from 1981 to 1988. The girl acquired PhD in architecture at the University of Moscow and has designed many buildings around Dalat. She has acknowledged the inspiration of Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi in the building’s design.

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Crazy House is also named a ” fairytale house ”. Its shape resembles a giant tree (the building has 5 floors), which incorporates sculptured elements representing animals, mushrooms, spider webs and caves. The architecture of the building is referred to as expressionist. The house was opened to he public in 1990 and has already been called 1 of 10 strangest buildings in the world by the Chinese People’s Daily. Nga decided to make it available to the visitors to ease the financial burden (she has accumulated the debt of 30 million dong!). She also opened there a guesthouse where you can spend a night in a beautifully stylized rooms. The cost of 1 room for 2 people is about 40USD. The entrance ticket to the Crazy House costs 40,000 dong / 2USD only.

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The guesthouse has 10 themed rooms, each one with an animal representing a particular theme. You will find there: a tiger room, an ant room, an eagle romm, a kangaroo room and more.. The eagle room has a fireplace in the shape of eagle’s eggs, and in the kangaroo room you will find a fireplace carved in a kangaroo’s belly. In addition, each room has its own symbolism, depending on the animal which it has as the theme. Nga describes the tiger room as representing the strength of the Chinese people, the eagle room as being big and strong as Americans and the ant room as representing the hard-working Vietnamese.

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The socialist government of Vietnam had mixed feelings about Nga’s Crazy House but finally let her continue the work without any restrictions. She had had more problems even before when constructing: the House with 100 Roofs, the building considered as anti-socialist.

Of course the interior structure of the house has no angular elements (like in Gaudi’s architecture), the angles of the walls are rounded, you go through tunnels to get from one place to another, moving up, down, turning after some time you can take an interesting ” journey ” to the nooks and crannies of the place. Of course, the only downside is the large number of tourists visiting the place all the time but you cannot avoid it.

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The view of  Da Lat from the Crazy House:

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Another amazing place in Da Lat is the 100 Roofs Cafe popularly known as Maze Bar (the building also has 5 floors). Actually no one knows why it has ever been called a cafe … you cannot drink coffee or tea there, it’s a bar and you can relly feel like in a maze there. Gettining from one chamber or floor to the other sometimes requires from you to squeeze yourself through small holes that look like holes in rock caves. Besides, suddenly you may not know where  are, following one exit you might find yourself ina  garden outside the bar, then going down, it turns out that you are already in a different place, and you do not really know where you are in fact …: P We do not know whether it is realistic to see all the chambers and nooks for the first time. You go to one place that leads somewhere else, and when you come back then again you have the impression that you landed elsewhere. You easily get confused and you feel observed everywhere by strange creatures ”glued” to the walls , the animals are there as well:)

P1230454The visit begins with buying beer, wine or cocktail right at the entrance then on the next floor you meet another bar. Some may make a nice mishmash in their brains after drinking more alcohol and even lose the track of people they came there with! 🙂
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Who designed this bar? A student from Crazy House architecture school, so in fact Nga’s student. It is a pleasure to look at these wonders of architecture and fill your with senses something fresh, fairytale-like and mysterious. Of course that’s obvious that the pictures do not fully reflect the climate of this place. Some rooms are too dark and the hallways are too narrow to be able to take a photo.

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How to get to Dalat?

If you really want to experience it all live, you can get to Dalat from Nha Trang in 4 hours by bus with the Sinh Tourist company or arrive there from Ho Chi Minh City (8h). We were there during the peak season as it was still the time when the Vietnamese were celebrating  Lunar New Year, so we paid 300.000dong/13USD for the bus from Nha Trang to Dalat, and when going to Ho Chi Minh City we spent 20USD for the bus per person.

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8 Replies to “Crazy architecture of Da Lat – come in and feel like you were in Barcelona!”

    1. Hi, we try to update our website every 3-4 days but it depends on such conditions as e.g. internet connection during our journey. Last time being in West Papua for 6 days we were cut off totally so didn’t post anything 😉 we are left with 3 more months of our trip through Southeast Asia so try to post current information on things we experience 😉

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