From understanding of national design characters and suggestion of the improvement of Vietnamese urban outdoor furniture toward a sustainable cultural environment

Abstract

Recognizing the threat of losing local identity under the pressures of modernization and globalization, the aim of the research is to extract the vital characteristics representing for a national style in order to propose a guideline for the modern industrial products in Vietnam in general, and urban outdoor furniture in particular. From the database of over two thousands Vietnamese traditional daily products, this paper presents the major results of analyses carried out on the use of materials, shapes and forms, colors and decoration, the four basic components of aesthetic appearance. The correlations between those four components are also looked at in this study. Continuously, all important results which show strength and distinction of each appearance’s component are extracted and classified into clusters which recognize the repeat pattern of the overall characteristics of the four main appearance’s components. The name of each cluster is listed as keywords of Vietnamese national identity such as Harmonious, Focused, Orthodox, Dynamic, Feminine, Slightly recessive, and Outward. Finally, the article suggests a sustainable solution for creating aesthetic identity of urban outdoor furniture by integrating those essential characters of tradition into the modern design. In other words, the characters of Vietnamese traditional daily products found out in this study are proposed as the guidelines for aesthetic improvement of Vietnamese urban outdoor furniture which can be an effective medium to introduce the culture of the local area and represents the image of a city.