Alternating with the Archives each month, this section features special items from the ICCROM Library, giving an insight into the varied resources of this important collection.
More than half a century has passed since the death of Louis Bezacier, who was born on 4 May 1906 in the French town of Cuffy, Val de Loire and died 60 years later in May 1966. Although an architect by profession, Bezacier’s passion was archaeology, especially that of the Far East.
In his biography of Bezacier , Louis Malleret writes about Bezacier’s appointment as Conservateur des Monuments of Tonkin following his arrival in Hanoi in 1935, with responsibility for other areas later entrusted to him. While in the post, he documented and restored traditional Vietnamese wooden buildings.
Malleret describes Bezacier as the greatest expert on the archaeology of Vietnam, adding:
“On peut dire que, jusqu’au 1945, il n’est guère d’édifice ancien du Delta du Fleuve Rouge ou de la province de Than-hóa auquel ne se soit intéressé Bezacier qui multipliait les consolidations, réparations, restaurations et réfections partielles.”
“It can be said that, until 1945, there is hardly any ancient building in the Red River Delta or in the province of Than-hóa in which Bezacier was not interested, undertaking more and more consolidations, repairs, restorations and partial reconstructions.”
The ICCROM Library holds Bezacier's work Relevés de monuments anciens du Nord Viêt-Nam, published in 1959 as the sixth volume in the Collection des Textes et Documents series of the Publications de l’École Française d'Extrême Orient. This fascinating collection of architectural drawings reflects his expertise in the field.
The drawings are contained in a portfolio made of brown-grey cardboard, with a reinforced blue-grey spine and matching blue-grey ribbon closure. Included is a booklet with a table of contents and explanations of the 85 black and white partly folded plates, each showing detailed ground plans and elevations of Vietnamese historical buildings and monuments.
How did this publication come to be in our library and why? We know it was acquired in 1977 through the bookseller Adrien Maisonneuve but the reason is less clear.
Six years earlier, while on a three-year secondment at ICCROM, the American architectural conservator W.B. Morton travelled on a mission to Hue, Viet Nam between 22 October and 12 November 1971. He summarised his findings in a report for the then Rome Centre Institute, which led to another mission and a more detailed report for UNESCO.
Could it be Morton who recommended the purchase of Bezacier's collection of architectural drawings? We will probably never know. However, Relevés de monuments anciens du Nord Viêt-Nam shows how thrilling it can be to dive into the depths of our wonderful collection, where an unassuming grey workbook can take you on a journey to another place and bring to life the history of international heritage conservation.