Dong Xuan Market has been selected as a Heritage Space in the Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2026.

The event was organized by the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports and Architecture Magazine, with the support of UNESCO, Sovico Group, and many domestic and international partners.

Evolving since 2021, the Hanoi Creative Design Festival has transcended the boundaries of a mere annual cultural and artistic event, gradually forming a creative ecosystem that brings together resources from the design, art, architecture, and technology communities. Simultaneously, it opens a space for dialogue between heritage and contemporary creativity, making a practical contribution to the development of the creative economy and international integration of the capital city.

Photo caption — Vice Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Vu Thu Ha

In 2019, Hanoi was inscribed by UNESCO into the Creative Cities Network (UCCN) in the Creative Design category, becoming the 246th Creative City in the world and the 32nd capital city to receive this recognition. Since then, Hanoi has consistently pursued a development strategy based on "creativity and the creative economy as its core," aiming for a dynamic, inclusive, and sustainable urban environment.

The Hanoi Creative Design Festivals are the spaces for realizing this strategy with themes rich in contemporary culture such as "New Life for Heritage" (2021), "Creativity - Dedication - For the Community" (2022), "Design - Community - Creativity" (2023) or "Dialogue between Heritage Architecture and Contemporary Art" (2024).

Continuing the creative flow from the community, the Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2026 is fundamentally oriented towards transformation: from "organizing a festival" to "building an urban creative ecosystem." Accordingly, the festival aims to become a creative institution, a place for convergence, experimentation, and dissemination of interdisciplinary ideas, connecting visual arts, design, technology, architecture, sound, data, crafts, performance, etc., creating multi-sensory experiences and new art forms of international caliber.

Speaking at the announcement ceremony, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Vu Thu Ha emphasized the city's desire to encourage creative projects and ideas that exploit and promote the value of culture, tangible and intangible heritage, and traditional craft villages, to develop them into innovative, commercially viable, and sustainable models. Hanoi expects even stronger collaboration from management agencies, universities, businesses, artisans, architects, designers, artists, and the creative community to build a rich and effective Vietnamese creative ecosystem that directly contributes to the socio-economic development of the capital city.

According to the announced framework, the Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2026 will implement eight key activity groups: Creative Exhibition, Creative Fair, Creative Forum, Creative Competition, Creative Project, Creative Design Award, Creative Fund, and Creative Infrastructure. These are considered the pillars for forming a connecting center, a dialogue forum, and an experimental space for the creative economy model.

Highly appreciating this direction, Jonathan Wallace Baker, Head of UNESCO's Representative Office in Vietnam, affirmed that the shift from a festival model to building a creative ecosystem will open up sustainable opportunities for designers, artists, creative businesses, students, and the community. According to him, creativity will become a shared practice, closely linked to daily life, and UNESCO is ready to accompany Hanoi on its journey to becoming a space of imagination, connection, and innovation.

A notable highlight of the 2026 Festival is its city-wide expansion into five main creative spaces: Heritage Space (Dong Xuan - Bac Qua area); Market Space (Old Quarter with 36 streets); Future Space (network of parks); Ecological Space (Red River mid-river area); and Community Space (spread across the entire city). These spaces are expected to test innovative economic development models linked to tourism, commerce, ecology, and community, aiming to sustain them as long-term projects.

According to architect Hoang Thuc Hao, Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Architects, focusing on exploiting the heritage space of the Dong Xuan Market - Bac Qua area and the Dong Xuan Cultural and Industrial Center will open up a new model of creative connection, where artists' ideas are linked with community participation, creating a strong synergistic effect, promoting multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional linkages, both domestically and internationally. The festival not only contributes to piloting creative economic models associated with tourism, but also aims to form projects that can be sustained in the long term, contributing to economic development, improving the quality of life, and urban beautification.

At the event, the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports awarded certificates to 82 creative cultural spaces that met the criteria to participate in the Hanoi Creative Cultural Spaces Network, marking a new step in affirming the central role of the creative community in the city's development strategy.

The Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2026 is expected to kick off with the "Creative Gathering" event in early January 2026 at Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc Square and the Hoan Kiem area, beginning the journey of creating a social innovation ecosystem and contributing to the sustainable development of the capital's cultural industry.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/xa-hoi/cho-dong-xuan-duoc-chon-la-khong-gian-di-san-trong-le-hoi-thiet-ke-sang-tao-ha-noi-2026-20251210190907619.htm