As Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi celebrates 125 years, a new exhibition brings together three generations of artistic practice to explore how Vietnamese cultural heritage continues to influence contemporary art.
There are hotels you visit simply as somewhere to stay, and then there are those that have become part of the cultural fabric of their city.
Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi certainly belongs to the latter.
Standing in the heart of the Vietnamese capital since 1901, the historic hotel has spent the past 125 years welcoming everyone from international travellers and writers to royalty and heads of state.
Now, as part of its 125 Years of a Legend celebrations, the Metropole is turning its attention to another important part of Vietnam’s story: its art.
Running until 8 October 2026, Indochina and After is a new exhibition presented in collaboration with Hanoi-based curatorial platform The Muse Artspace, exploring the evolution of Vietnamese art from the Indochina era through to contemporary practice.
And for anyone travelling to Hanoi over the coming weeks, it adds another reason to step inside one of the city’s most storied hotels.
Looking beyond the Indochina era
Rather than treating Indochina-era art as a completed chapter in Vietnamese cultural history, the exhibition asks a more interesting question: what came next?
Its focus is on artists who continue to draw upon Vietnamese culture and artistic traditions while developing visual languages of their own.
Curator Van Vi brings together three distinguished Vietnamese artists for the exhibition: Phan Cam Thuong, Ly Truc Son and Do Thi Kim Doan.
While their approaches differ, Van Vi describes a common thread running through their work: an ability to transform Vietnamese cultural values into a visual language that speaks to the present.
Three artists, three perspectives
Artist and cultural scholar Phan Cam Thuong looks towards Vietnam’s ancient cultural heritage through a series of lacquer paintings.
Traditional symbols and memories are reinterpreted through material, imagery and visual rhythm, creating works that remain connected to the past without simply recreating it.
Ly Truc Son, meanwhile, brings a more international perspective. Having spent many years working in France and Germany, his practice developed through an engagement with the aesthetic spirit of Indochina while also connecting Vietnamese art with wider movements in modern painting.
Then there is Do Thi Kim Doan, whose Garden Corner series turns towards something altogether more intimate.
Through richly layered lacquer works, the artist captures quiet scenes and moments drawn from everyday Vietnamese family life, finding beauty in the familiar.
Together, the three practices demonstrate just how varied the relationship between heritage and contemporary Vietnamese art can be.
When the hotel becomes part of the cultural experience
There is something particularly fitting about presenting the exhibition at the Metropole.
The hotel itself occupies an unusual position between history and contemporary luxury. Its original Heritage Wing dates to 1901, while its neo-classical Opera Wing, where the exhibition is being presented, represents another chapter in the property’s evolution.
“Art and culture have always been integral to the identity of Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi,” says General Manager George Koumendakos.
For the hotel’s 125th anniversary, Indochina and After therefore becomes more than decoration for its lobby. It continues a relationship between the property and the cultural life of the city around it.
The exhibition also reflects the work of The Muse Artspace, whose curatorial practice focuses particularly on modern and contemporary Vietnamese art and traditions including lacquer, silk and painting.
Rather than presenting artworks in isolation, the Hanoi-based platform looks at their relationship with art history, the artist’s own story, the space in which they’re being shown and contemporary life.
One to see if you’re heading to Hanoi
For travellers, exhibitions such as this offer something increasingly valuable: an opportunity to experience a destination’s culture as part of the journey rather than as a separate itinerary item.
You may arrive at the Metropole for its history, architecture, afternoon tea or simply a glimpse inside one of Hanoi’s landmark hotels, but until October, there’s another layer waiting in the Opera Wing.
And perhaps that’s an appropriate way for a 125-year-old hotel to celebrate a milestone.
Not simply by looking backwards, but by creating space for the conversation between Vietnam’s artistic past and its present to continue.
Indochina and After is on view in the Opera Wing lobby at Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi until 8 October 2026.
