Museum developer delves into Vietnam's potential

Museum Studio, a French company focusing on architecture and museums, has advanced interest in developing more projects in Asia, and Vietnam is currently very attractive to the firm, said its CEO Delphine De Canecaude to The Investor on the sidelines of a conference themed "How to build a museum" in Ho Chi Minh City.

What are your takes on Vietnam and its people through this trip, and what have you learnt about the country via the media?

I've been delighted to meet so many people since I arrived in Vietnam. I've sensed a lot of energy, dynamism, determination, and reliability. I also sensed, particularly in the exchanges at the university after our conference, a strong curiosity and appetite for creation, sustainability, and so on.

Museum Studio orchestrates a wide variety of talents from around the world, at the crossroads of heritage, landscape, craftsmanship, innovation, entertainment, and technology. So we're always curious and happy to discover new profiles and meet people in other countries, and I hope some of you will join us on our adventure.

You visited a museum in Hanoi. What was your impression?

As an international visitor to the Museum of Ethnography, we would have liked to have been told the story of Vietnam and the relationships between the different ethnic groups. The artifacts on display were disconnected from each other and didn't allow us to read the grand narrative of Vietnam.

Could you share about Museum Studio's activities around the world? What are your plans for the near future?

As an international leader in cultural engineering and production, Museum Studio offers the widest range of expertise to museums, foundations, institutions, and brands worldwide. We are the only company to offer a range of expertise covering every stage in the creation of a museum. From initial consultation to inauguration, we bring together talents who work with reliability, passion, innovation, and audacity.

It's important to understand that we're talking about "culture" in a holistic way, deployed over the long term in societies. Art dialogues with anthropology, history, pop culture, and nature, and this diversity is key to our approach. Today, we have delivered over 3,000 projects in 30 countries.

In the coming months, we'd like to develop more projects in Asia. We're already working on the new Science Museum in Singapore, and we're about to start work on a natural history museum in China. Vietnam is currently very attractive to us, and supporting the creation of museums and exhibitions in your country is one of our top priorities.

You mentioned Vietnamese handicrafts and seemed very impressed with these items. How can we increase the value of these products? Is putting them in a museum a good idea?

Putting a country's know-how in a museum is an important way of passing it on to younger generations and those who will take over in a few years' time. Through our work at Museum Studio, we see just how important museums are for a country and a nation. They enable us to know who we are as a society in a constantly changing world. It's a question of memory and identity.

This may sound like a classic museum approach, but in reality, a museum is much more than a building. To amplify the transmission of a rich cultural heritage such as Vietnamese craftsmanship, we are convinced that we need to refine storytelling and design more emotional experiences at the heart of museums so that the museum is more than just a place of presentation; this is our concept of the "culture of emotion".

Nowadays, there are many channels for the younger generation to enjoy. How can we attract young people to museums?

Museums and other cultural venues will always have a role to play in educating future generations, as their role is to look to the past and the present to build a positive future. One way of attracting these younger generations is to design immersive spaces with adapted narratives to create a unique moment between knowledge and transmission.

For us at Museum Studio, an immersive experience goes beyond simply contemplating the works on display. It immerses visitors of all ages in a dynamic world, stimulating their senses, emotions, and imaginations while encouraging active participation and a deeper understanding of the content on offer. The key to a successful immersive experience lies in the art of storytelling and the choice of the most appropriate techniques.

What advantages and disadvantages do you see for women working in the architectural profession? Can women be good architects?

I'm convinced that women are just as great architects as men, as in the rest of the profession. At Museum Studio, we like to work hand in hand with all those involved in culture, including architects, curators, engineers, and scenographers.

To give you an example, we worked on the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, whose building was designed by Zaha Hadid. Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect and urban planner. She was one of the most awarded female architects in the profession. She was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2004.