In what seems to be a repeat of the paint scandal that recently hit Saigon’s Central Post Office, Hanoi authorities have announced that the city’s 104-year-old opera house will soon return to its original color.
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"The Ha Noi Opera House shall be repainted the same colour approved for the last major restoration project in 1996," said Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism spokesman Phan Dinh Tan at a conference about the botched paint job last week, reports Vietnam News.
"The Opera House is an elegant architectural icon. The original colour must be restored," echoed Hoang Dao Kinh, who led the last major restoration of the building from 1994-1997.
After being repainted bright yellow earlier this month, experts lambasted the building’s management for conducting a makeover without a license and for the poor color choice.
The Opera House’s garish paintjob was undertaken without required permission from the Department of Heritage and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Not only was the color “…chosen randomly without proper research [sic],” but also matched the same shade of yellow used to signal outbreaks of cholera during the colonial period.
A nearly identical situation occurred earlier this year in Saigon when an eerily similar shade of yellow was applied to the city’s Central Post Office. The paint job was heavily criticized by tourists who complained that the bright color hurt their eyes; street vendors who said the building now looks more like a pagoda; and experts who said it didn’t match the intended French colonial hue. It was eventually repainted a few months later.
