Kim Ngan Communal House

A narrow gate stands open at numbers 42 and 44 on Hàng Bạc Street. Jewelry shops crowd both sides, and small anvils clink behind narrow doors. Yellow light falls across glass cases of rings, bracelets and chains. Beyond the gate lies the Kim Ngân communal house, where the goldsmiths of the Old Quarter honor the founder of their craft.

Step through, and the noise falls away. The courtyard is small. The front hall is built of wood, under a tiled roof whose corners curve high. On the altar, a yellow oil lamp burns steadily, and incense drifts from the rear sanctuary. Outside, anvils and motorbikes go on. Inside, the rhythm is different.

The Hanoi Moi newspaper, citing local documents, says the communal house was founded in the Later Lê period, around the late 15th or early 16th century. It links the founding to Minister Lưu Xuân Tín. He came from the village of Châu Khê, in the old province of Hải Dương, now part of Hải Phòng. The Lê court sent him to bring the smiths of his village to Thăng Long, to set up a workshop casting silver ingots for the court. Thăng Long is the city now called Hanoi. The Châu Khê smiths built the communal house as a place to worship the founder of their craft and to hand over and receive the ingots. The specific dating of Lưu Xuân Tín appears in local documents, and no academic source has settled it with certainty.

The communal house honors Hiên Viên. In East Asian belief he is revered as the ancestor of all crafts. He is a figure of legend, not a historical person with a firm date. The goldsmiths of Hàng Bạc worship the shared ancestor of every trade, as if to say their craft is one great road among the many.

According to the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, the communal house covers about 575 square meters, quite large for the Old Quarter. Its plan follows the shape of the character công. There is a ceremonial gate, a courtyard, and a front hall of three bays. A connecting passage leads to the rear sanctuary. There stand the dragon throne and the tablet of the craft's founder, in the deepest part of the building.

After 1954, many families lived in the communal house, and it was badly damaged. From 2005, Hanoi gave the restoration to Hoàn Kiếm and the Old Quarter management board, with technical help from the French city of Toulouse. On March 26, 2011, the communal house reopened to the public. Later, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ranked it as a national monument of architecture and art. It is a rare communal house of a craft's founder that has kept its large scale in the Old Quarter.

The Nhân Dân newspaper reports that the Hoan Kiem Lake and Hanoi Old Quarter Management Board runs the communal house as a space for telling the story of the craft streets, with exhibitions of objects. It remains a spiritual gathering place of the smiths of three villages. They are Châu Khê and Định Công, with Đồng Xâm as the third. Together these guilds shaped the tradition of Hàng Bạc.

Back on Hàng Bạc, the anvils ring again. The Kim Ngân communal house is the quiet center of the craft street, where the memory of the trade is kept and handed down.