December 2020 The International Issue

Our selection of the best design stories from around the world

Every Wednesday, Belgian photographer Wouter Vanhees leaves his Hanoi home at around 10:43 p.m., ‘when the stars of work, family, and personal time align', taking his scooter and camera wherever the night leads. Many of the resulting photographs document new developments for the city's burgeoning middle class, either complete or in progress. Others chronicle the corresponding deconstruction: as Vanhees puts it, ‘Houses, alleys, and entire wards disappear, with towers, streets, and new urban areas taking their place. It's hard to come to grips with this transformation, not understanding what was in the first place, let alone what is to come.'

Here, nightly activities sometimes form stilllife scenes framed by high windows, but often people are implied, not shown, demonstrating a transformation in scale and style that contrasts with romanticised, Orientalist stereotypes of colonial Hanoi. The hazy air and dominant purple tones (in Hanoi, ‘purple is the color of the night', Vanhees points out) are presented on high-quality art stock, making for compelling imagery.