Dien Bien Phu Victory Monument

A grandiose monument was installed on D1 Hill in Dien Bien City on the 50 th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Victory (1954-2004), to remind the viewers of this significant historical event. Generations of Vietnamese people will have a chance to enjoy this artistic work while recalling the merits of their forefathers, who, half a century ago, filled more glorious pages in the nation’s history.


Pouring bronze into the
mould.


One of the 12 pieces
of the statue after the
cover frame is taken off.


Transporting the
sculpture to Dien Bien in the warm welcome of the North-westerners.

A grandiose monument was installed on D1 Hill in Dien Bien City on the 50th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Victory (1954-2004), to remind the viewers of this significant historical event. Generations of Vietnamese people will have a chance to enjoy this artistic work while recalling the merits of their forefathers, who, half a century ago, filled more glorious pages in the nation’s history.nbsp;

The monument is 16.2 m high (the sculpture is 12.6 m and its base, 3.6m). It was re-produced according to the original statue by famous sculptor Nguyen Hai, which has been displayed at the Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts and was awarded three national-level prizes. At present, it is the biggest bronze statue in Vietnam.

After officially being selected, the sample of Dien Bien Phu Victory statue was further improved through four rounds of discussions by the Council of Arts. On August 3, 2003, it was made with clay, at a scale of 1/1. At the final check, General Vo Nguyen Giap and representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Central Department of Culture and Ideology, the Party Central Committee’s Office, and related ministries and branches, contributed valuable comments, before it was cast.nbsp;

The casting of this statue was undertaken by Nguyen Trong Hanh, Director of Doan Ket Company Limited, whose head office is located in Yen Tien Village, Y Yen District, Nam Dinh Province.

Over the past 13 years of learning and working, Hanh has made thousands of bronze statues of different sizes. The products made by his Doan Ket Company Ltd. have been sold both at home and abroad, including to American and African countries. However, when being entrusted to cast the Dien Bien Phu Victory statue, the biggest one in the country so far, Hanh felt a bit worried. He said that the

huge work occupied his mind to the extent he lost sleep and forgot to take meals. The statue needed 220 tonnes of bronze and 170 tonnes of iron and steel. But the most complicated process was to pour the melting bronze into the moulds. There were six furnaces working at the same time to boil the bronze to a temperature of 1,560o C, and four cranes lifting the four huge buckets to pour the boiling metal from the furnaces into the moulds under strong pressure. Any mistake, even the smallest one, in making the moulds, building the furnaces or pouring the melting bronze into the moulds, would lead to an unexpected disaster.

Hanh and his staff’s hard work has been worthily repaid. The huge statue, consisting of 12 pieces (the largest one is more than 40 tonnes) was successfully cast. It was transported over a distance of more than 600 km of roads and rivers, and installed on D1 Hill in Dien Bien City, just before the 50th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Victory.nbsp;nbsp;

Designer of the Dien Bien Phu Victory Monument

"Dien Bien Phu Victory" Monument, the biggest bronze sculpture in Vietnam, was recently installed on D1 Hill in Dien Bien Phu City, on the 50th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory, as a symbol of the Vietnamese nation's great victory. Sculptor Nguyen Hai is the designer of this work.

Born in 1933 in Tien Giang Province, Southern Vietnam, at 14 Nguyen Hai joined the resistance war against the French colonialists. In 1949, he was moved to Battalion 307 to both fight and paint for its bulletin. In 1954, he went to the North and took a secondary course in fine arts. Later he attended and graduated from the Vietnam Fine Arts University, at the sculpture faculty (1958-1963).

Hai made the "Dien Bien Phu Victory" sculpture in his final year at the university, which was then bought by, and displayed at, the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum. Since 1975, Hai has lived in Ho Chi Minh City.

Nguyen Hai is truly an artist. In his works, there are some features of the soldiers of Battalion 307, the liberality of the southerners in his native place, and his artistic mind full of creativeness.nbsp;

Hai has made sculptures for a long time, even during the war. So far, he has made many big bronze and stone sculptures, including the "Mother Homeland", more than 10 m high, a bas-relief of the 300-year-old Ho Chi Minh City, the "Thu Khoa Huan" in My Tho (Tien Giang Province), the "Workers fighting" installed at Junction Seven crossroad in Ho Chi Minh City. He also made two statues, "Giong Saint" in 1972 - a legendary boy - that marks a renovation in the sculptural language, and "Nguyen Van Troi" - a hero in contemporary time - which fully expressed his viewpoint on creation. These two works were greatly appreciated. Painter Tran Khanh Chuong, General Secretary of the Vietnam Sculptors' Association, wrote: "Nguyen Hai has more than 40 years in sculpturing and a large number of sculptural works of high artistic quality that marks a renovation in terms of sculptural language. He is the only person graduating from the Hanoi Fine Arts University after 1954, who has been conferred the Ho Chi Minh Award for Literature and Arts by the State.”

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Story: Van Chuc, Duc Hainbsp;nbsp;- Photos: Tran Dinh, Van Chuc, Doan Ket


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