A villa in the Tran Le Xuan villa complex.

Located on Yet Kieu street in Da Lat city, the Tran Le Xuan Villa Complex has been turned into National Archive Centre IV, which is preserving 30,000 Nguyen Dynasty woodblocks.

These woodblocks, which are made of a valuable kind of wood, were used in printing Nguyen kings’ royal proclamations, documents, as well as historical, educational and geographical reference books.

According to an official at the centre, the preservation of woodblocks always received attention under different Nguyen kings’ reigns. At present, these thousands of woodblocks, which have been classified and copied onto CD-Rom and are very valuable to modern Vietnamese history research, are being kept in archive rooms considered to be the most modern in Vietnam.

The 13,000 sq.m Tran Le Xuan Villa complex used to be very famous for its beautiful architecture, surrounding setting of pine hills and a hot water swimming pool, which has been restored to its original design. This was the residence of the family of Tran Le Xuan, Ngo Dinh Diem’s brother’s well-known wife, and other high-level military officials of the old Saigon government.

The centre plans to work on a project to select and exhibit woodblocks as well as other antiques and ancient works of literature for research and tourism purposes to provide the flower city of Da Lat with another attractive cultural and tourist destination.

Source: VNN