Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate that to see how their traditional characteristics were reflected and expressed in Hanoi vietnamese contemporary public restaurants. For this, We visited Hanoi twice to have onsite research in August 2012 and 2013. According to the results of surveying Vietnamese public restaurants, all of the 12 cases had humane characteristics reflecting Vietnam traditional culture, showing Vietnamese unique traditional characteristics including intangible elements such as natural environment, life culture elements such as food culture, and formative aesthetic elements using indigenous ornaments. Different from luxury restaurants that had trade names on the theme of historical stories related to people or places and expressed various concepts formatively using photographs of Vietnamese politics and history and ornamental elements such as tableware, however, the public restaurants were simple in theme or concept. It is probably because most of the surveyed cases were situated in the old quarter to the north of the Hoan Kiem Lake and in the area to the west of the lake and their target customers were local people, so they reflected the Vietnamese traditional residence style and common people's life rather than designing the restaurants intentionally with specific concepts. As to the spatial expression characteristics of the surveyed cases, casual restaurants in Hanoi expressed only basic structure using basic construction materials and techniques with outdoor spaces in the form of Vietnam traditional tube house, and therefore, the overall atmosphere was contemporary. In indoor spaces as well, the general level was low, using uncharacteristic common design and color and cheap finishing materials and furniture. 83% of all cases showed the pattern of VM-VM-VT, being mainly contemporary by partially adopting Vietnamese unique ornamental elements for their outdoor and indoor spaces and using traditional elements supplementarily.