The West Lake Expo first debuted in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in 1929. The Expo boosted the local economy for several years, but it then had suffered from the war and social turmoil. Recently, Hangzhou-based China Academy of Arts, China's first national higher-education institution for the arts, organized an ongoing exhibition showcasing models of the expo’s pavilion to tell people how the pavilions were designed mixing Chinese and Western styles.
The mixing of Chinese and Western styles which was revealed by the expo pavilions has been inherited by the China Academy of Arts. The exhibition showcases architectures, fashion, and articles of daily use, all from the academy’s own collection. The exhibition took one year to prepare on the basis of in-depth studies of China's design history in general and the school's evolution. China Academy of Arts aims to protect original Chinese simple design styles from the wave of globalization. Also, let people get to know how Chinese design arts developed and how our ancestors worked.