The house is located at 4 Nguyen Thi Minh
Khai Street. It was built 221 years ago when Hoi An was prospering. It
is a typical commercial house of Vietnam's urban areas in the 19th
century.
Conferred the title of "National Historical and
Cultural Site" in 1993, the house has kept many documents about the
architecture, culture, art and lifestyle of the Hoi An's business
circle from the old days. Phung Hung house bears the popular style of
the 19th century. It has a tubular shape with a wide facade. It is not
as long as some other old-style houses. It is mainly made of wood, with
two storey and four roofs. Its two adjoining parts look northwest. The
ground floor used to be the shop. Today, it is the family's living room
furnished with some wooden old-style cupboards containing many precious
objects and belongings.The house has 80 columns made of precious wood.
Each column stands on a lotus-shaped base in order to minimize
subsidence and moisture for the house and to prevent termites from
damaging it. There are square pillars on the veranda which roof is made
of pan-tiles.
A wide corridor surrounds the second storey, made
of wood. On the floor there is a square hole used for moving goods
upstairs. The second floor is now reserved for the worship of the
family's ancestors and of Thien Hau Holy Mother. On the table, in front
of the altar, there is always a bowl with seven marble dices, which the
owner used to employ to decide the departure time before his far-away
journeys. The architecture of Phung Hung house represents the
combination of Vietnamese, Japanese and Chinese styles. There are a lot
of designs carved by carpenters of Kim Bong Village. The house used to
be a shop trading in cinnamon, pepper, salt, silk, chinaware and
glassware. Now part of the house is used as a workshop for making
commercial embroideries.
