History as inspiration: Tracing Franco-Chinese architectural elements in Hanoi old houses

History is written in textbooks but is indubitably remembered through cultural artifacts and architecture. This is particularly the case when one thinks of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, where its thousands of years of ancient history can be found in the old citadels, and more than half a century of French colonialism can be glimpsed in the Old Quarter houses. Many of these structures have survived the brutality of wars and now feed into the nostalgia of French aesthetic. Yet, in what way can we come to gain greater insight into a cultural space where there is an interconnection between religion, house designs, and forms of feeling? One can find an answer to this question in a newly-published scientific research article titled “Cultural evolution in Vietnam's early 20th century: A Bayesian networks analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese house designs” in the Social Sciences and Humanities Open journal of Elsevier.