From September 5 to September 11, the 2013 Shanghai Design Week was held in the Shanghai Exhibition Center. With a theme of “Design Inspires Dream”, the event showcased the achievements of Shanghai’s creative industries in 2012 & 2013 and presented the annual awards. In the next seven days, the Week displayed Shanghai’s unique charm of design through three journeys, “Tour of Main Venues”, “Tour of the City” and “Tour of International Cooperation”.
The Design Week had no opening ceremony. Instead, it began with lectures and forums directly. Lu Yongxiang, the Former CAS President, gave a lecture on value of design and the future. The topics of the subsequent forums were around “the Construction of Shanghai as A City of Design–Innovation • Openness • Sustainability”. Hans d'Orville, the UNESCO’s assistant director-general, Cristina Giachi, the deputy mayor for the City of Florence and Zhu Tao, the chairman of China Industrial Design Association, were invited to lead in-depth communication and discussion on the “Role of Design in Promoting Industrial Transformation and Upgrading”, “International Cooperation of the City of Design” and “How to Develop Design Industry to Promote Economic Restructuring, Upgrading and Urban Construction of Shanghai”, respectively.
The annual awards of Shanghai as the City of Design were also presented one after another. Zhou Yi, the General Manager of S. Point Design, Ge Qing, the Chief Engineer of Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co., Ltd., and Yrjö Sotamaa, the President of Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture and Executive Deputy Director of Tongji University’s Sino-Finnish Center, won the title of Annual Figure; the Bridge 8, Mole and Pechoin won the title of Annual Brand; and Roewe E50 All-Electric Car won the title of Annual Product.
The “Tour of Main Venues”, “Tour of the City” and “Tour of International Cooperation” referred to the Design-Week-themed activities, events of all people and overseas promotion, respectively. This year’s event included a series of activities, including those for professional designers (the Shanghai International Interior Design Festival, Maker Design Marathon, Successful Design Contest, etc.), those for the public (2013 Shanghai Design Map, Small Design Dreams, Shanghai Youth Creative Ideas Gathering), lectures of masters, Exhibition of World’s Outstanding Chinese Graphic Designer and Global Low-Carbon Creative Competition.
In the Design Week, Dobe, as a member of Shanghai Industrial Design Association, displayed a large number of its achievements in various forms in the Shanghai Exhibition Center Exhibition. And in the exhibition of Zhabei District, a special booth was set up for Daning Dobe E-Manor to demonstrate the beautiful environment of this e-commerce industry park in Daning.
At the same time, the Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center in Florence held exhibitions to display Shanghai, the City of Design. And the Shanghai exhibition in London Design Festival woule be held from September 19 to 22.
