Spectacular German innovations and sparkling designs for a better life will be featured during German Week starting Thursday at Shanghai Times Square.

This isn't an Oktoberfest with beer and bratwurst, nor a high-brow German culture fest of classics. This is a forward-looking German Week featuring supreme leading-edge technology, renowned craftsmanship and innovative products for better living.

The seventh annual German Week at Shanghai Times Square runs from Thursday to October 19. It goes way beyond technology and industry and is one of the highlights of the Shanghai Tourism Festival.

"Idea, Design, Innovation" is the theme.

Many famed German enterprises will exhibit design masterpieces as well as curios. They combine technology, art, humanism and energy conservation.

"A fabulous design may rewrite our future lifestyle," says Cathy Hau, deputy general manager of Shanghai Times Square. "All these striking and creatively designed products are based on the concept for better living and can encourage local people to use their own eyes and hearts to find sparkling things and designs in daily life."

Hau has taken part in German Week planning for seven years and notes the innovation industry has been getting hotter and more vigorous in recent years.

"Its root and essential foundation, however, are still culture and arts," Hau says. That wellspring of German ideas will not be neglected in this German Week.

The grand opening on Thursday will feature the famous NDR Brass Quintet, performing masterpieces such as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba," "Circus March" and "Ragtime Dance."

A wine tasting will be sponsored by Bremer Ratskeller, one of the world's largest collection of fine German wines.

The event also features traditional German food, craftsmanship and concludes with a jazz and wine night.

The acclaimed German artist Rolf A. Kluenter will display 32 recent paintings addressing the big questions: the nature of self, the nature of the universe and the relationship between them.

The paintings explore the creative process, using shades of black, white and gray. Black webs and grids represent the hustle and bustle "shadow" of harried urban life.

The artist has spent the past seven years in Shanghai, gaining an understanding of its frenetic modernization and impact on human life. On October 15, he will host an interactive talk, showing viewers the source of his Shanghai inspirations.

As well, in collaboration with the Shanghai Photographers' Association, Shanghai Times Square will launch its first "Innovation Design" Photography Contest. Local photographers can submit insightful and creative shots that capture the city, either mailing or taking them to the organizer. Winning photos will be displayed later this month.

Previous German Week events have been well received by exhibitors and spectators, says Hau, noting that they are especially popular with a new M-generation - M for mobile phone.

This generation is emotionally attached to their mobiles, and they are open to new ways to use many types of phone technology to make life more interesting, easier, faster and more colorful.

"They're looking for something different and you need to tell something creative to inspire them," says Hau.