Today the Polish Embassy and the ambassador's residence are located at 3 and 5 Một Cột.
Unfortunately we do not know the architect nor the exact year when the buildings were built. The old image (to be seen in the gallery) dates back to the 1930s, this might be also the time of construction.
According to Renata Greplova, the first ambassador, Mirosław Gajewski, who was a lifetime Việt Nam expert, said that Maurice Durand, the director of l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient once lived there. And Hồ Chí Minh selected the site himself. The flat roofs were used to hang laundry, do morning exercise or meditate on the days’ events. A French business association may have been here before 1954.