After the peace treaty of Giap Tuat of 3 - 15 - 1874 and the trade treaty of the 8 - 31 - 1874, the Court of Hue agreed that the french government built a Conculate in Hanoi on a piece of land at the bank of the Red River. The piece of land is 20ha large and stretches at south from the suburb of Nhan Hoa to the bank of the river, at north from the suburb of Tay Long to the embankment of Co Tan (now the Co Tan street until the Tran Hung Dao street).
After the peace treaty of Giap Tuat of 3 - 15 - 1874 and the trade treaty of the 8 - 31 - 1874, the Court of Hue agreed that the french government built a Conculate in Hanoi on a piece of land at the bank of the Red River. The piece of land is 20ha large and stretches at south from the suburb of Nhan Hoa to the bank of the river, at north from the suburb of Tay Long to the embankment of Co Tan (now the Co Tan street until the Tran Hung Dao street).The houses are one-floored or two-floored after the manner of Cochinchina, comprising the consulate, the house of officers, the barracks, and the bureaux. Afterwards, the consulate was repaired to become the palace for the resident Paul Bert and for the first Gouvernor General Constans. In 1902, a new palace was built for the gouvernor general at the west gate (near the botanic garden), and the old palace became the quarters of the Tonkin Council, then of the first University of Indochina. But this University lasted only one year and the quarters are transferred to the French School of Far-East (founded in 1898) to serve as a storehouse and a place of exhibition for ancient objects. Since the architecture of this building is not proper for an antiquity museum for whole Indochina, in 1926, this building was demolished and rebuilt after a new architecture, and was inaugurated in 1932. The building was the result of the cooperation between the urbanist Hebrard and the architect Batteur, member of the French School of Far-East. The building is an architectural work, allying harmoniously the East and West architectures. The building was constructed by the company Aviat.
The museum was named after the name of the director of the institute, the indologist Louis Finot, but was currently named “nha Bac Co” by the people.
The building has a ground-floor, a first floor and a semi-underground floor. The roof is covered with tubular tiles, the vault is 18,65m high and has a free and easy aspect. Each floor has an octogonal hall. It is to be noted that the architecture suits well the surrounding landscape, which is fenceless. Against the trunk of a banyan-tree, in front of the museum, is installed an altar, where those who have lost things come to pray to try to recover their properties.
Paul Levy, chief of the Department of Ethnography of the French School of Far-East, has described the disposition of the museum 75 years ago: the semi-underground floor is reserved to bureaux, to laboratories, to workshops, to storehouses and to rooms of prehishory. At the ground-floor, beside the vestibule, is the room of prehistory (the local era of bronze with the set of bronze drums, unique in the world), the room of old indochinese writing, the room of chineselike tombs in Tonkin, a large room reserved to Annam, China, Korea and Japan. At the first floor, under the vault, corresponding to the vestibule, are placed objects reproduced at real scale of architectural decoration motifs on indochinese works with Chinese and Indian influence.
In two other rooms of this floor, are hung portraits of scientists, dead or alive, french or of other nationalities, who have contributed to the foundation of the French School of Far-East and have propagated the name of the School to the whole world. In these same rooms, cards showing the works realized by this organization in Indochina and in Far-East, as well as reports of exchanges with various places in the whole world.
At last, a very large room, corresponding to such a room downstairs, is reserved to the civilizations of China and India, represented by rich artistical works of India, Thibet, Myanmar, Java, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Champa. The back part of this room is a meeting-room, where on each Monday of winter and of the beginning of spring, the elite of Hanoi comes in crowds to hear the most recent results of research presented by members of the School. The space under the roof of the building is reserved to the storehouse of prehistoric objects.
In 1945-1946, the Museum is placed temporarily under the direction of Vietnam with the name given by President Ho Chi Minh: “National Museum”.
In 1958, the vietnamese government officially accepted the transfer of this cultural work and intensified the research, the collection, the complementation of the documents and of the ancient objects, changed the contents of art museum into historical museum. On the 9 - 3 - 1958, the National Museum of Vietnamese History officially opened to receive visitors.
The National Museum of Vietnamese History has an exhibition area of more than 2000m2 and a room of thematic exhibition of 200m2. It is truly a large national storehouse of conservation of special value, which, during more than 40 years (1958-1998) of archaeological excavation of hundreds of sites from north to south, has collected nearly 40.000 ancient objects (among 71.000 objects, registered in the inventory), besides more than 23.000 objects of reference. The original objects belong to various periods, from axes of shaped pebble aging from more than ten thousand years to objects of the beginning of the XXth century. These objects are of various materials such as: stone, bronze, iron, ceramics, bone, ivory, paper, tissue… not counting precious objects from noble metal such as golden seals, golden books as well as objects of daily usage of kings.
During these last 50 years, the National Museum of Vietnamese History is continuously open, including the years of destructive years, receiving more than 12 millions of visitors, among them many state chiefs and foreign researchers. Each year, the museum organizes three exhibitions on various themes, and itinerary exhibitions for the population of distant regions.
The National Museum of Vietnamese History is situated on a territory of 1,4 ha where there are many secular trees such as banyan, cay si, cay gao, cay sau. To preserve the landscape and its freshness, the Museum asks the specialists of the Institute of Sylviculture to come and take care of the trees. In 2000, the main quarters of the yard of the museum have been planified and paved with bricks reproduced from the times of Ly - Tran, and adorned with steles, altars, statues, stone animals, creating an attractive exhibition space in the open air and renovating the landscape.