Beijing Design Week has reached its fourth edition, exposing our Asian colleagues’ design proposals and showing how also China celebrates creativity and innovation, with projects that provide a large observatory on discoveries, dialogues and production challenges. The exhibition form, as each year, included key sectors that investigated various aspects of Chinese creativity: the relationship with government and businesses as an effort to make the cities more livable; the most influential figures who can, in this regard, make a difference; projects, events, exhibitions and installations to understand what are the reading keys of modern design; a conversation between the different cities, for cultural cooperation, academic and commercial (this year’s “guest city” was Barcelona); a design market dedicated to original Chinese design; a film festival, with screenings accompanied by debates and workshops. The main event “Urban Future, Smart Design” has been molded exactly around the concept of an active use of design to improve the quality of life in Chinese cities, engine of urban economics focused on ecology, key theme especially in Beijing, one of the most polluted cities in the world. A tool to determine the status of modern Chinese cities and to establish a concrete project aimed at the future. “Over the past years BJDW has sought to shape a critical arena and empower a positioning for design in the cultural, economic and social landscape of contemporary China. It offers disclosure to the mutating landscape underwriting the critical role of design across key areas of development, while providing discursive terrain to assess visions and tools for rethinking the legacy and therefore the future of China-specific tropes of urban and social edification.” Beatrice Leanza, Creative Director of BJDW.
