Design Is Everything

By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon says that his city will be striving to get ahead in design-mindedness.

"I think design is consideration, communication, culture, leisure, pleasure and economy. So, if I put it into one sentence: Design is everything," the mayor said Tuesday, introducing himself as a "design mayor."

Oh made the declaration of his design-first policy, in an opening speech as host of a two-day WDC (World Design Capital) World Design Cities Summit in Seoul.

Mayors, vice mayors, design delegates and experts from 31 cities in 17 countries participated in the international summit.

The summit is a part of official events of WDC Seoul 2010 and Seoul was designated as the 2010 World Design Capital for its potential and passion for design by the International Council of Societies of International Design (ICSID).

Mark Breitenberg, president of ICSID, said, the WDC program is to highlight the accomplishments of cities that have truly mastered the power of design as a tool to improve the social, cultural and economic life of them.

Euh Yoon-dae, chairman of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding, said the future-oriented discussion at the summit will serve as the foundation for Seoul to jump up to the level of an international design mecca.

German futurist Matthias Horx gave a keynote speech on how design will form economics in the near future.

The first plenary session was presented by mayors of three World Design Capitals ― Torino in 2008, Helsinki in 2012 and Seoul in 2010. Nah Keoun, 50, director general of WDC 2010 Seoul, hosted the presentations from three cities.

Nah said the summit aims to share the successes and failures of urban development through design and find common denominators among those. "It is a global trend to apply design to cities, not to industries, to upgrade the value of the city," he said.

Torino of Italy was selected as the first model city of World Design Capital in 2008. Sergio Chiamparino, Mayor of Torino, said the city was a typical manufacturing town, but reborn as a design city led by the municipal government.

The Italian city was full of automobile factories such as Fiat and other metallurgy, chemical and aeronautics plants by the 1980s. As the factories have scattered across the nation, the city chose design as their next-generation growth engine. Torino's philosophy in design was preserving the exterior of the industrial city while unifying the concept of design throughout the city.

For instance, Lingotto, a landmark of Torino, was a Fiat factory turned into a large shopping complex with a park and conference center.

Helsinki, the next WDC, is eager to promote its design and appointed the Design District in downtown Helsinki to present Finnish design and top-class Finnish design products. The city also has Helsinki Design Week, an annual city festival founded in 2005 to introduce people to new design. The 2010 Design Week falls on Aug. 27 to Sept. 5.

The Scandinavian city is famed for the Finnish Art Nouveau architecture, which has strong local characteristics of asymmetry and curved lines.

Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen said they founded a comprehensive university putting culture, technology and economy together, named after Alvar Aalto, a Finnish architect and designer, regarded as the "Father of Modernism" in northern Europe.

Pajunen said boundaries fade away and creativity and knowledge will connect everything.

Chaired by Helena Hyvonen, rector of the University of Art and Design Helsinki, the second plenary session is on caring for citizens in future design cities. Mayors and delegates have come from Eindhoven of the Netherlands, Taipei of Taiwan, Beijing of China, Bangkok of Thailand and Ankara of Turkey. Beijing announced its bid to become 2014 World Design Capital and asked for other cities' delegates to support them.

Three parallel sessions continued in the afternoon ― "Design & Urban Development," "Design & Business" and "Design and Quality of Life."

The mayors will adopt the "Seoul Design Cities Declaration," in promoting further cooperation in urban development through design today.

A special session on "Design & Future Cities" will be presented by Helena Hyvonen of University of Art and Design Helsinki, former Korean culture minister Lee O-young, Chen Dongliang of Beijing Industrial Design Center and Chris Wainwright of University of the Arts London.

Mayor Oh is going to give a tour of "Design Seoul," including Dongdaemun History and Culture Park, Cheonggye Stream, Gwanghwamun Square and Seoul Design Assets Exhibition, afterward.

meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr

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