Chinese town-planners focus their attention on design – Delegation from China visits red dot design museum

The city government of the Chinese city of Shunde visited the red dot design museum on Wednesday, 25 March. Professor Dr. Peter Zec, head of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, initiator of the red dot design award and Icsid senator, welcomed the party secretary of the Shunde district, Hai Liu, and his guests in the stoker’s position in the museum and presented the concept of the Zeche Zollverein as a location for creative industries using the example of the red dot design museum as the driving force behind it. The representatives of the Chinese city, the importance of which as an industrial and cultural centre in China is comparable to that of the city of Essen in Germany, showed great interest in the structural change of Zollverein and the underlying concept of the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen to develop industries with the help of design.

Design as the core business of the structural change –  this is a concept, with which the red dot design museum, the first institution to settle on the premises of the Zeche Zollverein colliery, provided a new utilisation perspective for the site at the end of the 1990s. This concept is now to also be applied far beyond the borders of Germany, helping to make the city of Shunde a more attractive location for companies from all over the world with the help of the creative industries.  

With a population of 1,5 million people, Shunde is a district of Foshan, one of the major metropolises in the Pear River delta and an important production and export location in China. The co-operation with Shunde is one of several partnerships the red dot has managed to establish in China in recent years. As an international design promoter red dot functions as a link between industry and design all around the world. With the help of this co-operation red dot aims to give the Chinese industry an understanding of the creative potential of German designers.