Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica
— — red brick from Marseille, under Saigon light.
Not only on a wall.
“Twin spires of red brick rising at the centre of old Saigon, the bricks shipped from Marseille in 1877 and still holding their colour. The basilica faces the long axis of Đồng Khởi street, with the post office a step away to the east. Mass continues on Sunday mornings. The square outside fills with motorbikes and slow walkers at dusk. from the studio
Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception sits at the centre of District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, facing the long axis of Đồng Khởi street. Built between 1877 and 1880 under French colonial administration to a design by the architect Jules Bourard, the structure rises in Romanesque-Gothic revival from imported materials. The red bricks came directly from Marseille and have held their colour without a coat of paint for nearly 150 years. Twin bell towers stand 58 metres tall, raised to roughly 60.5 metres with the addition of iron spires in 1895.
The bricks that face the basilica's walls were ordered from Marseille and shipped to Saigon by sea, a French colonial choice that left the building reading the same warm red the day it opened and today. Stained glass came from Chartres and was partly destroyed in 1945; the surviving panels show the older work. A major restoration of the slate-tiled roof and the bell towers began in 2017 under the management of the Archdiocese of Saigon and is expected to take several years to complete.
The basilica sits at 1 Công xã Paris Square, directly opposite the Saigon Central Post Office, both within easy walking distance of the Reunification Palace and the Ben Thanh market. Public mass schedules vary, and weekday entry has been limited during the restoration that began in 2017. Photography of the exterior is unrestricted and the square outside is open to the public day and night. The best light on the brick falls in the hour before sunset, when the warm red deepens against the surrounding plane trees.