By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
Seoul will open a two-day World Design Cities Summit today to set a future course for the design-minded, eco-friendly development of cities around the world.
The international summit is part of the World Design Capital or WDC Seoul 2010, a special status given to a city that shows improvement in its economy, culture and citizens' livelihoods, and is sponsored by the International Council of Societies of International Design (ICSID).
The theme of the first summit is "Design and Cities: Designing a Competitive City for the 21st Century," and Seoul City has invited some 32 mayors, officials, policymakers and experts in design from around the world.
The mayors and delegates will present successful case studies on certain cities and hold discussions on design and urban development.
The list of participating cities include Turin, the model WDC in 2008; Helsinki, the next WDC in 2012; and Eindhoven, who vied with Helsinki for the 2012 position.
Delegates from five cities among UNESCO Creative Cities ― Montreal, Buenos Aires, Shenzhen, Nagoya and Kobe ― will also join the discussions. Fourteen cities from China, including Beijing, are interested in becoming the third WDC in 2014, and five cites from Turkey will also take part in the summit.
Matthias Horx, a renowned German futurist, will give a keynote speech on "Design and the Future: How Design Changes the World." Horx studied sociology and worked as a journalist and consultant in the 1980s.
He established Trendburo Hamburg in 1992 and his agency became one of the top trend researchers on the German marketing scene. Later, he founded Zukunftsinstitut, a think tank for European design. His publications include "Technolution," "Future Fitness" and "How We Will Live: A Synthesis of Life in the Future."
The first plenary session on Tuesday morning, led by Nah Keoun, director general of WDC 2010 Seoul, will discuss the vision of WDCs with a presentation by the mayors of Seoul, Turin and Helsinki.
The next plenary session will be on cities that have designs that care for its citizens. Helena Hyvonen, rector of the University of Art and Design Helsinki, is going to chair the discussion and the mayors of Eindhoven, Beijing, Bangkok, Taipei and Istanbul will show how their cities have been developed.
Following this, other cities will share successful policies related to urban development, business and the quality of life in each session.
On Wednesday morning, the mayors will have a round-table conference to summarize the discussions and adopt the "Seoul Design Cities Declaration" to suggest ways of urban growth through design.
After the declaration, participants will go on the "Design Seoul Tour," looking around Dongdaemun History and Culture Park, Cheonggye Stream, Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul Design Assets Exhibition and Samsung D'light, Samsung's promotional showcase.