My name is Alexandra, and I am an independent researcher specializing in Southern Vietnamese modernist architecture.

In 2024, I took a sabbatical to travel across Asia. Arriving in Vietnam, something about the streets felt unlike anything I had seen before, though I could not immediately explain why. A Google search led me to an article by architect Mel Schenck describing Southern Vietnam as one of the most overlooked, and disappearing, centers of mid-century modernist architecture. That was enough to convince me “I had nothing better to do” during this sabbatical than to document it. I rented a motorbike and drove into the Mekong Delta.

Two years later, I have documented more than 300 buildings across nine cities and presented this research at Harvard GSD, DOCOMOMO International, and the UIA World Congress of Architects.

I am neither an architect nor a photographer by training. This project began simply from the conviction that this architecture deserved to be recorded.

This website brings together my writing and my photographs.