History & Architecture of Helios Waterfall in Ba Na Hills

In late April/early May 2022, the Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills was inaugurated and opened, to commemorate the 47th Vietnam Reunification Day. This building was one of new ‘products’ that Sun World Ba Na Hills provided visitors in the peak Vietnamese holiday season. It’s set aside the Permanence Square, in the front of Beer Plaza Restaurant, all lying within the French Village complex.

The Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills is a perfect collaboration of the Frilli Gallery from Italy and Susan Leyland, a sculptor from the United Kingdom. This meeting of masters brings the mountain resort an extraordinary work of art and tourist attraction. Total number of artists is up to 20. They spent around 1,5 years to complete (or 6,000 working hours).

The Frilli Gallery was established in 1860, named after Master Antonio Frilli, a renown Italian sculptor who lived between 1860 and 1902. Since then, it has become a point of reference in Florence city of Italy and many other countries. Sculptures produced by it are found across the world nowadays. According to the CEO of this gallery, the owner company of Ba Na Hills – Sun Group contacted him for the first time in 2019. He received a request to transform a boring staircase into a great cascade/waterfall which duplicates a larger one in Russia. The Helios Waterfall became the first construction his family’s gallery has done ever in Vietnam.

Besides the Frilli Gallery, Susan Leyland is another artist who owns the Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills, especially horses. She was borned in 1952 in the United Kingdom, near Cambridge. In 1973, she visited Italy for the first time and later, has lived in this beautiful country until today. Florence, the city of art, museums and history, captured her heart. Here, she found a studio and has spent time creating memorial horses which make their own international reputation.

About the architecture, the Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills is a glorious, fascinating cascade decorated with 43 sculptures made of 8 tonnes of yellow bronze. This is the brand new type of material that the Frilli Gallery invented, helping statues look more glorious in the sun, and it was first used at Ba Na Hills. All of them were created by lost-wax casting, a set of techniques dating back from 5,000 years ago. There are 7 steps and approximately 4 months required to make one sculpture, according to the gallery. To transfer over fourty sculptures from Italy to Vietnam and then Ba Na Hills (lying on a mountaintop), two 40ft containers were used to carry. It took engineers up to 40 days to finish.

The highlight of Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills is the sculpture portraying Helios – the Sun God in Greek mythology, lying in the middle and near the cascade’s bottom. This god rides a carriage pulled by 5 horses, made-to-order sculptures from Susan Leyland. On higher positions, there are 7 sculptures of Venus (Goddess of love, beauty, fermility, prosperity, sex, desire and victory) as well as the sculpture of Apollo (God of music, prophecy and healing), Bacchus (God of agriculture, wine and fertility), Athena (Goddess of oil, peace and war).

In the evening, the Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills still opens. With light, it becomes so royal, glamorous and magnificent. Sure, nobody wants to miss it and take one picture here. Outdoor beer parties, bonfires, indoor live music and dancing performances,…are organized in the surrounding area, making this cascade a must-see attraction. By night, there are no crowds here.

The idea behind the Helios Waterfall at Ba Na Hills is inspired by the Grand Cascade at the 18th-century Peterhof Palace in Saint Petersburg city of Russia (aka ‘Versailles of Russia’). Somehow, it may be a (much) smaller replica of the cascade. In fact, this cascade was modelled on the construction at Château de Marly, a French royal residence west of the world-famous Palace of Versailles (near France’s capital Paris). It’s an art work of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, an Italian architect (1700-1711) who worked mainly in Russia under the request of Peter the Great (1672-1725) who visited Versailles Palace in 1714.

On the square in the front of Helios Waterfall, between 10 am and 3 pm, there are outdoor performances occuring, such as dancing, singing, etc. During the day, nearby stalls sell grilled meat skewers and sausages, homemade breads, craft beers, etc. Not far away, visitors can see carnival rides to ‘fly’, winning award games, coffee shops, gardens, temples.