Hong Kong, Aug. 24 (NBD) -- The Promotion Conference of Chengdu Building a Cultural Creativity Center in Western China, a part of Sichuan-Hong Kong- Macao Cooperation Week, was held in Hong Kong. Terrence Riley, former architecture curator of Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and world's famous architect, had an interview with NBD on the sidelines of the event.

NBD: Are you familiar with Chengdu's culture or the cultural creativity industry in Chengdu?

Riley: I know a little bit, because I have only been Chengdu once and I got a very positive impression.

NBD: What's your opinion on Chengdu's culture?

Riley: There are many different things. The first thing, I like the food very much. In America, most Chinese-Americans from the 19th century were Cantonese, so all the Chinese restaurants in America were Cantonese. Sichuan food is a big surprise.

NBD: Chengdu is aiming to bring its culture to the whole world and to promote the creativity industry. What suggestions do you have with this regard?

Riley: For city planning, we need to have infrastructure for transportation, energy and communication. And we also need to have infrastructure for culture and creativity. It doesn't just happen by itself. You have to plan infrastructure for creativity.

NBD: So we need to have a whole plan.

Riley: Clearly, formal infrastructure like museums and also informal infrastructure. Artists need a place to work and live. If there is no place in the city except way outside, then artists can't be part of the culture. So soft infrastructure and hard infrastructure are what's important.

NBD: You mean a creativity cycle should be formed in developing cultural creativity industry, right?

Riley: Absolutely a circulatory creativity, From the artist, space, exhibitions to museum.

NBD: Do you know the song being played is for Chengdu?

Riley: I didn't know this. I want to go back to Chengdu. The New York city did a study of tourists not after but before they went to New York, and all these tourists have a list in their head, "I want to go to Broadway. I want to go to this museum". And we are very interested in how people make these lists. In China, I would say 90% of American tourists go to Shanghai, Beijing. They don't know well about Guangzhou, Chengdu. How do you they all know Beijing and Shanghai? And this is a complicated process. The tourists have explications from the media, friends, television, movies and books. Somehow, they create these opinions and have a huge effect.

NBD: What do you make Chengdu's environment for the cultural creativity industry?

Riley: I think it's beautifully located along the rivers. I think it should be a different place to live and people should know about it.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn