Hong Kong's design gap with Shenzhen is growing ever wider

Within a few months, discerning Hongkongers seeking the very finest in creativity and design will probably feel compelled to board a ferry bound for Shekou.

The port and former offshore oil base on the western periphery of Shenzhen, which hardly existed prior to the 1980s, is to be home to a major new design museum, on schedule to open early next year and created in collaboration with London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

The Shekou Design Museum is a symbol, if any were needed, that the city, still dismissed by many Hongkongers as a purveyor of copy hand­bags and cheap massages, is an emerging epicentre of design and creativity. Shenzhen’s positioning of itself as an inter­national “design city” has been so rapid that it has left Hong Kong struggling in its wake. In terms of “creative juice”, compared with the dynamic former factory town, Hong Kong appears to be running on empty.

“When you think of design, think of digital design and then think of the impact of digitisation in our daily lives, that is Shenzhen,” says Luisa Mengoni, head of the visiting V&A team, gazing down at the museum construction site from her office on the 28th floor of China Merchants Tower.

This is the first overseas collaboration undertaken by the V&A, explains Mengoni, adding that it combines a consul­tation service to the client, China Merchants Shekou Holdings, with the delivery of a V&A design gallery within the museum.