Lac Temple, Dong Bang Village, Vat Lai Commune

Hanoi is the capital, the national political and administrative center, and also one of Vietnam's major centers of culture, history, and tourism. With a long history, longstanding cultural traditions, and a rich heritage system, Hanoi currently preserves many historical-cultural relics, architectural-artistic relics, traditional festivals, and tangible and intangible cultural values of special significance. These are important resources for developing cultural tourism and community tourism, contributing to promoting the image of a cultured, civilized, modern, and richly distinctive capital.

Among the historical-cultural relics in the capital, Lac Temple in Dong Bang Village, Vat Lai Commune, Hanoi, is an architectural work of historical, cultural, and religious value. Lac Temple worships the Three Deities Tan Vien Son Thanh; it was built quite early and has undergone many ups and downs in the nation's history to the present Lac Temple no longer retains documents about the year of its founding. To determine the relative date of the temple's existence, researchers relied on a stone stele bearing the Chinh Hoa 18 (1697) era name, which mentions the creation of the temple's stone stele, and on artifacts in the relic such as sets of dragon thrones, ancestral tablets, royal edicts, decrees, worship cabinets, and wooden incense tables from the Le era... Thus we can infer that the relic was founded during the Le era. Through the ups and downs of history to the present, the relic has been restored and repaired many times. The inscription on the upper beam of the relic states that Lac Temple it was restored in the sixth year of Khai Dinh (1921), and in recent years the local government and people of Dong Bang Village have renovated various categories of items such as re-tiling roofs and whitewashing...

Lac Temple has a front-first, rear-cong layout, comprising the tien te hall, dai bai hall, and hau cung sanctuary, surrounded by an earthen courtyard and an ancient earthen wall with brickwork in the middle, located in an advantageous position, the relic faces northwest and its overall layout with architectural units is relatively perfect in structure, showing harmonious symmetry. The tien te building was made later (during the Nguyen era), yet there is almost no difference from the dai bai and hau cung buildings; the roof height and interior frame create uniformity with the two rear buildings, reflected in traditional layout and structure. With its typical historical, cultural, and architectural-artistic values, the Lac Temple Relic was ranked by the Ministry of Culture as a National-level Architectural and Artistic Relic under Decision No. 3093-QD-BVHTTDL dated September 23, 2014. The ranking of the relic is an important basis for the locality to carry out management, protection, restoration, embellishment, and promotion of the relic's values in accordance with regulations; it also contributes to preserving historical, cultural, and traditional religious values, educating generations about traditions, and serving the people's cultural and religious needs.

One of the outstanding values of Lac Temple is the system of carved and decorative panels dating from the 17th and 18th centuries with themes of Dragons, Phoenixes, and other decorative motifs. The carved panels not only have artistic value but also vividly and truthfully recreate many activities in the working life, cultural life, and spiritual life of Vietnamese village communities in the past. The images of Dragons, Phoenixes, Turtles, dragon horses, con so, and nghe made of terracotta, ... the carved panels with soft, vivid lines, rich in form, contributing to creating a distinctive, close, and warm artistic space for the temple's architectural work. Through the carved panels, they visually express aspirations for a peaceful, prosperous, and happy life and the prosperity of the community. With typical values in history, architecture, art, and folk beliefs, the traditional Lac Temple festival held on the 6th day of the first lunar month every year is a potential destination for cultural tourism development in Vat Lai Commune in particular and Hanoi in general. Preserving and promoting the relic's values in connection with introducing and promoting traditional cultural values will contribute to forming distinctive cultural tourism products, attracting visitors to explore history, architectural art, and the cultural life of the local community.

Through the preservation and promotion of Lac Temple's values, today's generations have the opportunity to approach and learn more deeply about the history, culture, and traditional art of their ancestors; at the same time, this contributes to raising community awareness in heritage protection, building a healthy cultural environment, promoting local cultural identity, and contributing to Hanoi's sustainable tourism development goals.