Through social distancing collection, French photographer casts new light on Saigon architecture

Photographer Alexandre Garel’s recently released snapshots of Saigon’s unique architecture highlight a previously undiscovered layer of the city’s new builds amongst now empty streets.

Garel, a French photographer with years of experience in snapping photos of Saigon’s unique architecture, was born in 1971. 

He moved to Vietnam at the end of 2011 and immediately fell in love with the city, spending his days building a photo archive of local architectural landscapes.  

In 2019, Garel collaborated with architect Mel Schenck to create a photo book titled ‘Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture.’

His most recent photo book, ‘Saigon: Portrait of a City’ (2020), features a collection of photos and essays centered on Saigon’s architectural legacies, created in collaboration with journalist Tim Doling.

In late May, as Saigon was entering a new phase of social distancing and streets quickly emptied of human life, Garel began snapping photos of something he had never seen before in the city: desolation.

Seizing the moment, Grael began taking pictures of iconic landmarks, including colonial French edifices, Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, Binh Tay Market, and Turtle Lake, in order to capture an eerie emptiness most Saigonese could never have imagined.