Vietnamese Museum of Australia

Vietnamese Museum of Australia

After the fall of Saigon and the ensuing Vietnam War, more than 1.4 million Vietnamese fled,  setting out into the unknown on poorly equipped, unseaworthy vessels. Many loss their lives at sea to thirst and starvation, others raped and suffered at the hands of pirates enroute to neighbouring countries. Those fortunate enough to land on the shores of neighbouring Thailand and Malaysia found themselves in refugee camps, stateless.

Between 1975 and 1995, under the leadership of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, more than 100,000 Vietnamese refugees were patriated to Australia. As of 2020, there are close to 300,000 residents of Vietnamese descent living in Australia, a testament to resilience and new beginnings, many of them carrying scars and untold stories of harrowing loss and heartbreak.

 The Vietnamese Museum of Australia, the first of its kind in the world, serves as both a memorial and museum – collecting, documenting and retelling these stories, remembering, giving image to suffering and triumph.

Lateral was invited back in 2019 to participate in an invited competition. We are humbled to have been selected to design and deliver the VMA on behalf of Vietnamese Australians and the Vietnamese community around the world.

Our design process involved extensive stakeholder engagement through workshops with representatives of the community, most of whom recounted their journey first hand. On the 24th of May, The City of Maribyrnong voted unanimously to approve the planning permit of Museum, construction will begin in the spring – summer of 2022.

Walking the Story

How do we capture the gravity and the violence, the brave resilience, the comfort of new land? How do we house a story so large?

We departed from tradition, from artefacts being observed hanging from pristine gallery walls. Visitors are instead invited to walk the story, confronting the physicality of the journey – experiencing spaces and shifting textural landscapes.