UCCN General Assembly + C2-MTL + City of Design Subnetwork Report

The general meeting of the UCCN is held annually in one of the accredited Network cities; this year it was held at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT) in Montréal, a UNESCO City of Design. The European-style streets of Old Montréal remind one that Montréal, Canada’s second largest city after Toronto, is also the second largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris. The city is also known as Cirque du Soleil’s base. Montréal is a preeminent cultural city within not only Canada, but all of North America.

Nearly 100 delegates from 32 of the 34 Network cities converged at this meeting, where they discussed management policy going forward and introduced newly accredited cities. Upon the meeting’s conclusion, representatives enjoyed the PechaKucha UNESCO Cities of Design Special Edition. At this event, individual Cities of Design, including Montréal, presented their activities as such, as well as representative designers and design projects. Nagoya introduced its efforts to nurture the new generation of designers, as well as the work of young designers who strive to develop new design experiences in Nagoya.

Separately from the meeting, 11 Cities of Design, including Nagoya, held a sub-network meeting to discuss the sharing of more specific information and the possibilities of the future network projects. In addition, representatives of Nagoya, Kobe and Montréal reported on the collaborative Design Cities’ project “CODE 2011”. The participants also considered continuing the “Souvenir” theme from CODE 2011.

UCCN General Assembly 2012 + C2-MTL + City of Design Subnetwork