Shekou Design Museum leads push to make Shenzhen the design capital of China

In the past decade, Shanghai has emerged as the centre of fashion design in China, Beijing as the heart of architecture and, more recently, Shenzhen as the home of graphic design. By giving these industrial powerhouses a sense of creative purpose, the central government hopes to show the world that China can innovate rather than merely imitate. Shenzhen is home to more than 6,000 design companies employing over 60,000 designers, not including fashion experts and architects. Yet, it has so far lacked a definitive statement that it's a member of the global design community. Such a statement is what the developers of the Shekou Design Museum aim to make. Due to open to the public in early 2017, the museum is being funded by the China Merchants Group, a large state-owned enterprise founded in 1872, working in partnership with the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in Britain. Claimed to be the mainland’s first major design institution, the museum will showcase international design collections, and inspire them. The project is part of the broader redevelopment of the Shekou Industrial Zone, originally a base for foreign oil-platform workers in the 1980s. “Shenzhen has been the centre of a large design community - particularly graphic designers - for the last 15 years or so, and it is now becoming one of the most important hubs for companies specialised in product and digital design,” says Luisa Mengoni, head of the V&A Gallery that will exist within the museum. It seems fitting, then, that Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki, whose recent works include Tower 4 of New York’s new World Trade Centre and the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, is overseeing the project. The city’s design community is not a new development. Bi Xuefeng, founder and creative director of IMAGRAM, a Shenzhen-based graphic design company, says the economic deregulation of the 1980s encouraged the launch of several design enterprises despite there being a lack of local culture and government support at the time. Since then, the central government has supported graphic design more directly. In 1992, the first national exhibition of graphic design was held in Shenzhen, and the Shenzhen Graphic Design Association, the first non-official design association on the mainland, was established three years later. In 2008, Unesco named Shenzhen a member of its Creative Cities Network and awarded it the title of “City of Design”. Building on this, the developers of the Shekou Design Museum hope the project can become a bridge to the wider creative world. “We are working closely with Chinese designers to ensure the museum and the gallery will enable a productive dialogue between creative practitioners from China and the West as well, as with a diverse public in Shenzhen, the Pearl River Delta and, more broadly, mainland China,” Mengoni says. But is this an example of the cart coming before the horse? Is it possible to impose design sensibility on an area with an economically pragmatic heritage? According to Lorraine Justice, former director of the School of Design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and author of China’s Design Revolution, it depends. “Overall, the government is supportive of those activities that will increase innovation and creativity, and so design is supported in that regard. Art is harder for the government to support when the self-expression is critical of the government or its party members,” Justice says. “Now, design is used generally to solve a problem that will benefit many, as in social needs design or product design, that will help the economy and keep manufacturing alive. “What I think is so exceptional are the designated areas in major cities where designers and other entrepreneurs can open up a small shop, with hopes of building a brand.” Such areas include Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Wuxi, which have devoted huge structures, or “innovation parks”, to support the growth of creative enterprises. Justice believes this is part of a larger governmental plan to develop more national brands for the domestic and foreign markets. Far from replacing the beleaguered manufacturing industry, a thriving domestic design sector could help prop it up, particularly with home-grown luxury brands that will draw investors. In the meantime, the Shekou Design Museum will give mainlanders a chance to see and experience more Western design and open creative thinking, as the Bauhaus Museum in Hangzhou has done in eastern China. Beyond this, it helps restore the country to its seat in the global discussion on design and innovation, where it has held a significant role historically.

Shekou Design Museum leads push to make Shenzhen the design capital of China

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Shekou Design Museum intended to push city onto global stage as central government aims to support creative sectors

Shekou Design Museum intended to push city onto global stage as central government aims to support creative sectors