Waiting for restoration of Thanh Chiem Citadel national relic

Nguyen Du Secondary School is believed to be located on the Imperial Palace of Thanh Chiem Citadel. Photo: VINH LOC

Long journey of project implementation

The idea of restoring Thanh Chiem relic into Thanh Chiem Citadel Park and Quoc Ngu script first appeared in 2016 after the success of the scientific conference "Thanh Chiem Citadel and Quoc Ngu script".

According to the original design, the items inside the restored Dinh Tran Park will include a part of the old Thanh Chiem Dinh Tran; a house displaying artifacts about the Dinh Tran; a museum of Quoc Ngu script, displaying artifacts related to Quoc Ngu script; statues of the Nguyen Lords, statues of those who contributed to the opening of the country; those who contributed to Quang Nam ...

In particular, there are statues of the first priests who laid the foundation for the birth of the national language, along with scholars and journalists who contributed to the dissemination and promotion of the strong use of the national language...

On May 24, 2017, Thanh Chiem Citadel was recognized as a National Monument by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Accordingly, the restoration of this structure becomes even more necessary and appropriate to not only preserve the values of the relic but also turn this place into a tourist attraction on the journey to explore the two heritages of Hoi An Ancient Town and My Son Temple Complex.

On October 23, 2017, the People's Committee of Dien Ban town (old) issued a decision approving the detailed planning 1/500 of Thanh Chiem Palace Park phase 1, with a scale of about 1.16 hectares.

In May 2020, the Thanh Chiem Palace Park project (phase 1) was completed (total investment of 8.8 billion VND), including site clearance items, leveling the entire ground in front of Nguyen Du Secondary School (elevated to the current DH2 road); construction of a soil retaining system; reinforcement of the slope and grass planting, investment in a drainage system along DH2 road.

On May 6, 2021, the Thanh Chiem Palace Historical Cultural Park and National Language Project (Phase 2) was approved by the People's Council of Dien Ban Town (old) in Resolution No. 04/NQ-HDND (total investment of 100 billion VND, town budget), total area of about 1.98 hectares.

At this stage, the project will continue to carry out items such as leveling, traffic, water supply and drainage, lighting, landscape trees and functional areas in the park (statue garden, lake, stele - relief, palace exhibition house, national language monument, national language exhibition house, library, hall and other related items)...

However, because Dien Ban town (old) does not have funds, the project has not been able to be implemented yet.

Identify the difficulty

Thanh Chiem citadel was established when Lord Nguyen Hoang sent his son Nguyen Phuc Nguyen to guard Quang Nam citadel in 1602 and cut the land south of Hai Van (which belonged to Dien Ban district in the past) into Quang Nam citadel (1604).

Phase 1 of the project has only leveled the ground in front of Nguyen Du Secondary School. Photo: VINH LOC

From a land “outside the border”, Quang Nam became a major political and economic center - the second capital in Dang Trong, after the capital Phu Xuan, contributing with the capital Phu Xuan to keep the north safe, defend the east and expand the territory to the south. Notably, not only managing economic activities in Quang Nam, Dinh Chiem was also the place to manage the activities of the Governor and the Governor of Saigon - Cho Lon area.

Mr. Pham Van Ba, Vice Chairman of Dien Ban Ward People's Committee, said that since the establishment of the 2-level local government, the ward has continued to pursue this project. However, implementing phase 2 at the present time is not feasible because the scale of the project has expanded compared to the original (total area of 2.6 hectares), so the planning work must also be adjusted, especially related to the relocation of Nguyen Du Secondary School and the arrangement of land fund to build a new school..., including the investment capital for phase 2 is also quite large (estimated at about 300 - 400 billion VND).

In the immediate future, from now until the end of the year, the locality will mainly focus on developing a plan to organize a competition for ideas on the planning of the restoration of the citadel and the erection of a stele in Vietnamese in 2026. On this basis, it will advise the city to add it to the medium-term public investment portfolio.

“Organizing the competition for ideas to plan the town palace is not expected to be easy because of its special nature related to cultural history, so the competition topic is extremely difficult, especially the selection process, because Thanh Chiem Town Palace is currently a ruin with no specific image left,” said Mr. Pham Van Ba.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/cho-phuc-dung-di-tich-quoc-gia-dinh-tran-thanh-chiem-3300094.html