Words and photos by Luke Digweed

A floor-by-floor guide to a cool & iconic Saigon landmark

Packed with cool places to hang out, meet up, socialize, bring a date or do some work, the characterful, crumbling, nine-storey apartment block at 42 Nguyễn Huệ Street, in downtown Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), is a vertical chocolate box of independent cafes, fashion boutiques, bars, coworking spaces and international restaurants. Known as the Cafe Apartment, the building functions like a library of stylish haunts: visitors can browse each floor, checking out the décor of each space, before deciding which one to settle into. You could spend an entire day exploring the Cafe Apartment, wandering from floor to floor, up the twisting stone staircase, along the tiled corridors, ducking into any of the businesses that take your fancy. Photogenic, trendy and abuzz with the city’s youth, this old Saigon edifice is reborn. But the building, which is an attraction in itself, sits on prime real estate and has been threatened with demolition. Constructed in the middle of the 20^thcentury, it housed government personnel, US military advisors, naval officers and shipyard workers at various points in its history. Today, the popularity of the Cafe Apartment is probably the only thing that stands in the way of it being torn down for a new development. […]

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