In line with the late Prince Philip being photographed with baskets, I snapped a shot of Colin Powell off of the television that was shown on CNN Breaking News when he passed away, October 18, 2021.
Powell is leaning against a structure in Vietnam in the mid-1960s. It looks to be constructed of bamboo and made in a wicker weave. It is similar in construction to a mat seen in a photograph below.
Echoing this construction is "Floating Nest," a new building with a bamboo basketry-type exterior screen by Atelier NgNg, a research and design firm with offices in Los Angeles and Saigon.
Read about it here: https://worldarchitecture.org/article-links/egfnz/this-vietnamese-narrow-house-by-atelier-ngng-is-clad-by-woven-bamboo-screen-made-of-vertical-sticks.html
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Detail, Floating Nest
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Below, an undated photo from Viet Nam News shows a bamboo house with construction more like Atelier NgNg's Floating Nest than Powell's building.
Goggling "Vietnamese bamboo structures" led to all types of beautiful and creative contemporary structures, wherein bamboo is lauded as the building material of the future. To find some older photos, I dove into archives and found Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive, whose copyright statement says:
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The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University....If using these resources for writing purposes, they should be cited appropriately to include The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University and the individual collection from which they were used." https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/resources/digital.php
Although I have not found more on Vietnamese bamboo construction with limited searching today, I found hundreds of photos with bamboo in the archives, and will share a few with baskets here. These are all cropped. Interested readers are encouraged to visit the online archives to see more. Thank you to the Archives, including soldiers and others who donated their photographs.
Courtesy of The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University:
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Qui Nhon Vietnam, 1955
Rufus Philips Collection,
VA066498 |
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Basket hanging from a bamboo ceiling,
W.B. Bartow Collection,
VA009374 |
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Basketry mat, 1970, Douglas Pike
Collection, VA002376 |
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Bamboo building, no date, Earl R. Rhine
Collection, VA061131 |
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Roadside Baskets, Hugh Manes Collection,
VA016566 |
