Business of Design Week

Communicate, collaborate and trigger exchanges of views centred on potential openings for the “design business” are the goal and purpose of the event organised by the Hong Kong Design Institute.

It was a busy three days for those attending the Business of Design Week, a project backed by the pro-active Hong Kong Design Institute, the creative beating heart of the island, historically seen as the financial hub of the Far East. 
A parterre de rois of speakers – from Toyo Ito to Matteo Thun, Sou Fujimoto and Ascan Mergenthaler of Herzog & de Meuron – took to the stage one after the other at the Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Business of Design Week
Anne Chapelle at the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
The goal and purpose of the event is to communicate, collaborate and trigger exchanges of views centred on potential openings for the “design business” and to step up exchanges between East and West. The hours spent in the auditorium were intense with many questions being asked by an audience comprising mostly students, enthusiasts and the curious, all excited at the chance to speak to big names on the international stage of design and architecture.
Poster of the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
The format of this annual event calls for a guest country and this year’s choice fell on Belgium, which adopted the slogan “Belgian Spirit” and presented prime talents such as Xavier Lust, who illustrated a career spanning more than 20 years, and the architect Christine Conix of CONIX RDBM Architects, which restructured the Atomium monument with nine spheres constructed for the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1958 and who spoke of the link between architecture and the urban identity.  
Business of Design Week di Honk Kong
Anne Chapelle at the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
With his distinctive class, museum giant Lars Nittve illustrated to an interested public the colossal M+ project on the shores of the West Kowloon peninsula, a museum that will narrate and present “more” (as its name says) and that aims to amalgamate a mix of different cultural identities under the same banner, exploring the various manifestations of contemporary creativity. Nittve stressed that the M+ museum will convey the cultural overlapping of all the arts, from digital to architecture, contemporary art and design, explaining that not only are these different fields interchangeable but its staff will approach them in a bold and innovative way. He also underlined that, although the focus is on Asia, the purpose of M+ is to look at the world through new eyes. It will be a museum of the visual culture at large, distinguished by fluidity between different categories.
Charles Kaisin at the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
In Nittve’s hands and with a design and architecture curator of the ilk of the young and talented Aric Chen – who moved from New York to create the permanent collection – the foundations are laid for exciting programmes that will turn the museum into a prominent hub of exploration (not just in Asia) with a global vision, thanks to its alternative take on presenting works, and even their warehouse conservation. As well as aiming to become one of the world’s most visited museums, the building by Herzog & de Meuron – who won a competition open to Snohetta, Toyo Ito, Renzo Piano, Saana and Shigeru Ban – is, without doubt, a far-reaching urban project, with hopes that it will become a major landmark on the city’s skyline by 2017.
Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
At the forum, we met its busy director William To, formerly of ADV and who has long been the drive behind the Design Week project, subtitled the “Business of Design Week”. “This is exactly”, he explains, “what was originally behind the event: design is a resource that enriches creativity but, equally, it is capable of developing powerful market forces that help the economy grow.” So, design is considered an exceptional tool that amazingly manages to merge dream and reality; creativity drives the production and employment machine: “Eleven years ago, I started working with the Hong Kong Design Centre, a non-profit body backed by the government with substantial funding to raise design awareness in our country and, most importantly, strongly link it to the market philosophy.
Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
We want to make design known and accessible to the many not just the few. People have always been sceptical about this discipline. Parents struggled to understand why they should send their children to a “design school” because they could not see any opportunities or potential in it. We have never had a specific design culture. Unlike Beijing and Shanghai, previously far more closed but now sponges in their ambition and thirst for what is new, we have always been open to change, exchange and evolution. Shanghai today is like the Hong Kong of the 1980s. Hong Kong has an unusual history; it is and always has been a port opening its arms to the world and that is how we act, every year inviting a foreign country to present itself.
The audience of the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong
We build relations and links that will benefit many in the future and bring professional opportunities.” The guest country is given carte blanche and is free to present its finest minds. After Holland, France, Japan, Germany and Italy (2007), it is Sweden’s turn next year: “Since 2006, we have tried to channel established protagonists on the global stage to Hong Kong. Educational activities are a priority with training courses and workshops where students can be hands on and learn the trade.” Where does design currently stand in Hong Kong? “At least, people are talking about design”, says To, “the newspapers have started writing about it considerably and devoting increasing visibility to the subject; the average numbers of students enrolling in design courses has risen hugely in recent years.”
Conversion project of the former Police Married, to realised ateliers for 100 young entrepreneurs, some foreign, who can open workshops and promote themselves

The government knows how to respond to the new demand and the Hong Kong administration has just donated a building, once the Police Married Quarters in Hollywood Road in the Soho zone of Central, to 100 young entrepreneurs, some foreign, who can open workshops and promote themselves. It will be called PMQ and opens its doors next spring with, once again, a view to linking creativity to the markets, local and non-. “At last, people are beginning to absorb and understand design; there is also a good market for design collecting. Since major contemporary art galleries opened in the city, from Gagosian to Perrotin, and with the arrival of ‘ArtBasel’, the fair that turns everything to gold – the second edition is in preparation (ed. note) –, Hong Kong has confirmed its status as the fulcrum of the Asian art market. I like to think of design as a drive in our economy. In my own small way, I have become a collector. I like simple lines and I look for small sculptures, paintings and Scandinavian-design furniture.

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