Vietnam · Structural Craft / Decorative Craft
Làm Đèn Lồng Hội An
Hoi An's silk lanterns are one of the most immediately recognizable images of Vietnamese culture — round, oval, and geometric-form fabric-covered wire lanterns in brilliant colors that fill the ancient town's streets for every full moon festival. The lantern-making tradition of Hoi An uses a bent-wire armature over which colored silk or fabric is stretched and sewn — a technique that shares structural principles with Jimm Wong's Foochow lantern (CRAFT-0258) in Singapore but uses wire rather than split bamboo for the frame and silk rather than rice paper for the covering. The Hoi An tradition produces dozens of named forms — the long cylindrical (den ong) for festival processions, the round (den tron) for house decoration, the star (den sao) for children — each with a specific wire-bending geometry held in the maker's hands.
Risk level: Endangered · Not separately inscribed; within Hoi An UNESCO World Heritage Site context
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