Design Museums in China and Hong Kong

SHANGHAI, HANGZHOU AND HONG KONG

Since 2014, I have been researching design museums in China and Hong Kong. My initial investigations, titled “Design Museums in Contemporary China: Localising Global Models”, examined the localised (Chinese) cultural and creative industries, using these narratives to contextualise the recent emergence of design museums in China. This work adopted a case study approach, focusing on the China Design Museum (CDM) in Hangzhou, the China Industrial Design Museum (CIDM) in Shanghai, and M+ in Hong Kong.

My research has been supported by the Design History Society, the Basil Taylor Memorial Prize and the Anthony Gardner Fund. It has been described as an anthropology of the future by Dr. Inge Daniels (Oxford University). Updated extracts of this study have been published in Design and Culture journal (Issue 3, Volume 9, 2017) and Icon magazine (December 2018).

The following individuals were interviewed for this project: Shen Yu (Founder and Curator, CIDM); Hang Jian (Director, CDM); Aric Chen (Curator of Design and Architecture, M+); He Jianping (Graphic Designer); Wang Min (Dean of the School of Design, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing); Xiao Yong (Professor of Visual Communication Design, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing); and Li Degeng (Curator and Deputy Director of the Department of Visual Communication Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing). Transcripts of these interviews can be accessed via the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (search “Design Museums in Contemporary China: Localising Global Models” as the publication title).

Image captions (starting from the top, then from left to right): 1) Photograph of the Xiangshan campus of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, the host institution of the China Design Museum. 2) The Shanghai International Industrial Design Center, which hosts the China Industrial Design Museum. 3) Inside the China Industrial Design Museum. 4) Aerial view of the M+ construction site in West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, 2017. Photo: WKCDA.

<<<