About
Mel Schenck is an American architect with 50 years of experience managing design and construction of complex planning and building projects. He began his career managing construction contracts to Vietnamese contractors in Saigon for the U.S. Navy in 1971-72. He ended his professional career with the design of his Ho Chi Minh City “Breeze House” in 2014, which was published in several architectural magazines including Architect Magazine and ArchDaily. He has now moved on to architectural history research and writing. His article “The Largest Military Construction Project in History” was published in the New York Times on 16 January 2018. His book “Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture: Mid-century Vernacular Modernism” was published internationally in April 2020, and in Vietnam in May 2020. Mel is now researching contemporary Vietnamese architecture for an upcoming book about information-age architecture. Education
University of California, Berkeley, M.Arch, Architecture, 1980-1981
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, B.Arch, Architecture, 1965-1970 Publications
Books
• “Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture: Mid-Century Vernacular Modernism”. Architecture Vietnam Books. 2020. International Edition. ISBN 9780578516585
• “Southern Vietnamese Modernist Architecture: Mid-Century Vernacular Modernism”. Hanoi: Thế Giới Publishers. 2020. Vietnam edition (in English). ISBN 9786047778904
• “Vietnam” Chapter in the book Adventures in the Land of Modernism, published by the Modernist Society, Manchester UK, in July 2018.
• Editor: “Poetic Significance: Sài Gòn Mid-Century Modernist Architecture” by Pham Phu Vinh. Architecture Vietnam Books. 2021. International Edition. ISBN 9781087943374
Articles
• “The Largest Military Construction Project in History”, The New York Times, 16 January 2018
• “Opinion: Saigon’s Architecture Should Reflect Our Times Today, Not the Past”, Saigoneer, 17 May 2017
• “How Vietnam Created Its Own Brand of Modernist Architecture”, Saigoneer, 28 December 2016
• “Breeze house”, Architect: The Journal of the American Institute of Architects, 6 April 2016
Projects
“Breeze House”, ArchDaily, 8 September 2015
