Ho Chi Minh City’s Shifting Skyline Stirs a Movement to Preserve History

When Nguyen Viet moved back to Vietnam from Britain in 2014, he was hired to write design guidelines for a redevelopment project in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. He had just earned his master’s degree in urban design and planning, and was eager to make an impact.

But before he could finish writing the guidelines, a building on the project site — a 1929 Art Deco apartment beside the former Rue Catinat, once a central artery of French-colonial Indochina — was demolished.

“What I realized is that they have very little power,” Mr. Viet, 28, said of his fellow urban planners. “The fates of the buildings were being decided by someone else.”