Barcelona presents its activities at Beijing Design Week

The Spanish northeastern city of Barcelona presented its program of activities as guest city of Beijing Design Week, local media reported on Thursday.

At a press conference held in the City Council of the city on Wednesday, the mayor, Xavier Trias highlighted the importance of the event, which allows "to promote Barcelona ... as capital of design and strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation" with Beijing.

Visitors will be able to see different aspects of Barcelona at various locations in Beijing. The city has organized five exhibitions, 17 conferences and over 20 activities. Also, different schools of design and architecture of the two cities and a business delegation will participate in the event.

At the exhibition "Barcelona, a future inspired by design," which will be placed in District 751, in a pavilion of 3,500 square meters, visitors will learn about 30 new design objects among other issues.

Other activities, such as conferences or business and institutional meetings, all related to design and architecture will also be organized in this pavilion. Barcelona wants to take this opportunity to promote their designers and other agreements with Chinese entities.

The Dashilar District will host three projects as part of the program: Casa Barcelona, Allioli and Meet the Twin. They include exhibitions, outdoor cinema, workshops and exchange of ideas on design as Meet the Twin, where five Catalan design studios will talk with other five from Beijing.

It will also be possible to see the movable sculpture called "El Caballo de Barcelona" (The Horse of Barcelona) during that week that represents "a bridge" between the Catalan and Chinese cultures as the horse is inspired by traditional cavalcade in Catalonia and the year of the horse in China.

This horse will be exposed for 10 days in Beijing and will be part of 14 parades with music and dance that will take the streets of the city.

The Beijing Design Week will be held in the capital of the People's Republic of China between Sept 26 and Oct 3. Last year it received nearly 5 million visitors and was attended by over 1,800 designers and design institutions worldwide.

The Barcelona Pavilion, which follows London, Milan and Amsterdam as guest city, will be inaugurated on Sept 27.