Phung Hung Mural Street

Early in the morning on Phùng Hưng Street, before the roar of motorbikes fills the air, the first sunlight slants across the stone arches of an elevated railway. Under the old vaults, the colors of the murals come into view: the green of a row of trees, the warm brown of tile roofs, the deep red of an áo dài in a painting. The áo dài is a traditional Vietnamese long tunic.

Before 2019, those arches looked very different. The elevated railway along Phùng Hưng Street was already standing under French rule. Beneath it, the arches were a dark, damp emptiness, often used for parking or simply left unused.

In 2019, the Hoàn Kiếm People's Committee and the Japan International Cooperation Agency launched a mural project together. It was one step in a series of efforts to renew public space in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.

The project chose 21 arches, and a mural was painted straight onto the inside of each one. Vietnamese artists did all the work, under a single shared theme: the urban memory of Hanoi.

That theme appears in very concrete scenes. One arch shows children playing the street game đánh khăng on a dirt road at the start of the 20th century. Another shows a drink stall at the mouth of an alley, with an aluminum kettle and a small stool. One arch holds a woman carrying flowers on a shoulder pole in the early morning. Another has a row of narrow tube houses with mossy tile roofs and an old star apple tree. Each painting is a small piece of memory, and no two are alike.

What sets this street apart is how the old structure and the pictures fit together. The stone arches of the railway are industrial heritage built under French rule, from the same era as Long Biên Bridge, which stands not far away. Instead of erasing or covering the marks of time, the project used the stone arches themselves as frames. One old thing holds another.

Today the mural street is a place where many Hanoi families go for a morning walk.

Passing under 21 arches is like turning 21 pages of memory. A child on bare ground, a woman with her flowers in the early mist, mossy tile roofs, the familiar calls of vendors at the head of an alley: all of it is still there. It is silent and alive beneath the old stone arches. Above, the trains still run. Below, the Hanoi of a century ago is waiting.