A poster for Beijing Design Week Photo: Courtesy of Zhao Nan

Visitors explore Beijing Design Week. Photo: Courtesy of Zhao Nan

A showcase for the Beijing Daxing International Airport at the Beijing Urban and Architecture Biennale Photo: Courtesy of Zhao Nan

One of China's top design events, Beijing Design Week kicked off on Monday with a series of exhibitions, guided tours, academic seminars as well as cultural dialogues. 

Taking "In the Perspective of Well-being" as its theme, 2020's event will focus on the role that design plays in building a well-off society and try to guide the in-depth integration of creative design with urban construction, cultural development, technological innovation, targeted poverty alleviation and people's need for a better life.  

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the mayor of this year's guest city Helsinki couldn't make it to the opening ceremony. Instead he opted to appear in a prerecorded video to talk about his city's cooperation with the event organizers.  

As the first design event in Beijing since the COVID-19 outbreak, the week is hosting a special section for  creative designs and posters aimed at lifting people's spirits and recording Chinese people's efforts to combat the deadly virus. 

The opening ceremony also marked the beginning of official poster submissions for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Relevant poster designs will be accepted until October 31. 

During the week, a number of cultural events will also take place in venues across the city including urban design, hutong renovation and industrial design events. 

Additionally, the Beijing Urban and Architecture Biennale also kicked off on Monday. One exhibition, Diversified Co-existence, showcases of some of Beijing's historical and modern landmark buildings from the Great Hall of the People to the recent Daxing International Airport, as well as the map to the new Zhangjiawan Design Town. 


Newspaper headline: Creative integration