Late 20th Century (1975–2000)

Ho Chi Minh City Thu Thiem New Urban Area

1996– · Vietnam · Southeast Asia · Innovation districts, knowledge corridors, and economic clustering · Planned by Sasaki; various
Sasaki's prize-winning master plan for the Thu Thiem New Urban Area across the Saigon River from central Ho Chi Minh City, showing streets, blocks, water network and riverfront. Direct image file from
Sasaki's prize-winning master plan for the Thu Thiem New Urban Area across the Saigon River from central Ho Chi Minh City, showing streets, blocks, water network and riverfront. Direct image file from · copyrighted

Core idea

New CBD across the river

Why it matters

Major expansion of HCMC core

Description

Thu Thiem New Urban Area is a planned extension of Ho Chi Minh City on a peninsula of the Saigon River directly opposite the historic centre, designated in 1996 and re-masterplanned in the 2000s with Sasaki Associates producing the guiding plan adopted in 2005. The scheme envisages a dense new central business district of around 657 hectares with a canal-threaded landscape framework, civic and cultural buildings, and new bridges and a tunnel linking it to District 1. Implementation required the relocation of tens of thousands of residents and has proceeded in phases.

Significance

Thu Thiem is Vietnam's most prominent attempt to build a new CBD across the river from an existing core, and a key case of post-reform socialist-market urbanisation. Its landscape-based Sasaki plan is cited for adapting delta hydrology to high-density development, while the project became nationally controversial over land clearance, compensation and official misconduct, making it central to Vietnamese debates on land rights and megaproject governance.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.