The Mirror House in downtown Hanoi’s Thong Nhat Park was awarded the silver trophy at the International A’ Design Awards, the jury board announced on Tuesday (April 17^th).

Artist Nguyen Thu Thuy and visitors in front of the Ceramic Mirror House. It was awarded the Silver trophy at the International A’ Design Awards. (Photo: Nguyen Thu Thuy)

The House was awarded the prize in the category of Public Arts Design for Society and the Environment.

The Mirror House, or Laughing House, was built in 1979 with support from the former Czechoslovakian government. It was built in the shape of a huge snail shell, with 50 mirrors reflecting distorted reflections of visitors.

Last year, the house was in a state of disrepair, with oxidised mirrors, a leaking roof, and damp walls. Hanoi’s authorities assigned painter Nguyen Thu Thuy and her colleagues from the Tan Hanoi (New Hanoi) Company to renovate the House and turn it into an artistic structure decorated with ceramic designs.

Thuy took inspiration from the ocean, in an effort to captivate the imagination of children, the House’s main visitors.

The new design of the Mirror House won applause from the jury board of the International A’ Design Competition, the world’s largest and most internationally dispersed international design awards event.

Inside the Mirror House in downtown Hanoi’s Thong Nhat Park. (Photo: Nguyen Thu Thuy)

Thuy is set to visit Como, Italy, in June to receive the prize. Images of the Hanoi Ceramic Mirror House will be exhibited in MOOD Museum during the occasion.

This year, the organising board received 1962 nominations from 100 countries in 99 different disciplines of design.

The A’ Design Awards were established to raise public awareness of outstanding design practices and principles. The ultimate aim of the award is to build strong incentives for designers, companies and brands from all countries to come up with better products, services and systems that can benefit mankind.

The competition therefore highlights and pushes forward worldwide designers and brands to create products and projects that offer additional value, increased utility, and new functionality, alongside offering superior aesthetics, efficiency, sustainability and performance./.

VNF/VNS