One Pillar Pagoda was built in 1049, part of the Dien Huu Pagoda relic complex located on Chua Mot Cot Street, near Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Ba Dinh District.

Legend has it that King Ly Thai Tong (1028 - 1054) was old but had no son. One night, the king dreamed of Buddha Quan Am sitting on a lotus throne, holding a son in his arms and giving him to the king. Shortly after, the queen gave birth to a son. The king ordered the construction of a lotus-shaped pagoda and named it Dien Huu.

The scale of the old pagoda was much larger than it is now. Through the dynasties, One Pillar Pagoda was renovated many times, each time the pagoda and the surrounding landscape were changed.

Initially, when Dien Huu Pagoda was built, in front of the pagoda, people erected a large stone pillar on the ground with a statue of Buddha Quan Am sitting on a lotus throne. This architectural style allows us to associate it with the structure of the Kinh Chang (Thach Chang / Kinh Cot) - a type of Buddhist architecture, often built to create merit. This type of architecture began to flourish during the Tang Dynasty, spreading to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. During the Dinh - Le Dynasty in our country, Kinh Chang was built quite a lot, Nam Viet King Dinh Lien once built 100 Kinh Chang in the year Quy Dau (973).

Dien Huu - One Pillar Pagoda is a Buddhist architecture built in the western garden of the Imperial City. The garden (large landscape garden) is a type of ancient landscape architecture, built by kings as a place for rest and entertainment.

The Imperial City Garden began to be built together with the Ly Dynasty Imperial City, located in the western part of the Imperial City, in the area of ​​the Botanical Garden and the Ho Chi Minh Museum today. Based on the natural landscape of this place, people dug a lake and built an artificial mountain, planted trees, flowers and released birds to create a large private garden for the Ly Dynasty's royal family.

The One Pillar Pagoda has a unique architecture: a square wooden building, placed on a stone pillar planted in the middle of the lake and around the stone pillar there is a system of curved ironwood bars supporting the building, so the whole building has the shape of a lotus flower rising straight above the water surface.

Today, the One Pillar Pagoda is only a part of the architectural complex of Dien Huu Pagoda, which was originally a sutra built in front of the pagoda, with the structure of an octagonal stone pillar erected on the ground (the front yard of the pagoda), the sides of the stone pillar are engraved with Buddhist scriptures, the top of the pillar is a lotus platform and a statue of Quan Am (there is no shrine yet).