As the gates of the Venice Biennale open to the public today, the heavy doors of the Russian pavilion will close. The substantial security contingent pacing around the building’s perimeter was kept busy by protesters voicing their opposition to both Russia and Israel’s inclusion in this year’s festival.

On Wednesday, with hot pink balaclavas and even hotter fuchsia flares in tow, the art collective Pussy Riot’s chanting forced the Russian pavilion to temporarily close its doors. By the end of Vernissage – the preview week for press and VIPs – an impeccably dressed lone woman stood outside in a fedora, sunglasses and striking checked suit. But it wasn’t her style that kept a steady stream of smartphones and television-news cameras pointed in her direction. On her back was a sign that read: “NO PUTIN NO WAR”. The bright blue Birkin swinging idly from her arm was emblazoned with a crossed-out illustration of the Russian leader’s face. 

Elsewhere, Latvia’s pavilion (as it happens, an underrated gem of an exhibition in the Arsenale) launched a campaign titled “Death in Venice”. The Latvians are calling on visitors to print a specially designed graphic to show their opposition to Russia’s presence when heading to the Biennale. The campaign will run until November and signals that those ardently opposed to Russia’s pavilion don’t want their voices to fade as the press and VIPs vacate the city after Vernissage.  

On Friday, many visitors eagerly flocking to see this year’s most talked about pavilion were disappointed to find it closed all day. Austria’s exhibit is a performance featuring full nudity, bodily fluids and, just outside the pavilion doors, a topless woman who dangles from inside a giant bell. The lack of a naked female bell clapper was just one symptom of a 24-hour strike led by the Art Not Genocide Alliance group (Anga), which has shut down multiple national pavilions and included a rally by the Arsenale. The action was a response to the inclusion of Israel’s pavilion this year (albeit moved from its enviable spot in the Giardini to a less prestigious location elsewhere). While politics and art go hand in hand, this kind of demonstration is unprecedented in the Biennale’s recent history.   

The controversy has been coming to a boil for some time. Before Vernissage even began, a decision was made to replace the event’s Golden and Silver Lion awards with a Eurovision-style public vote in November. And then just days before the gates opened, the entire Biennale jury resigned over the pavilions. 

Understandably, the art itself has been excluded from much coverage of this week – compounded by a lack of prizes not creating the usual buzz over certain pavilions. The Biennale’s late curator, Koyo Kouoh, titled this year’s event “In Minor Keys”: her curatorial vision is all about subtlety, slowing down and tuning into quieter, more elusive signals. Instead, with the decision to include such contentious national pavilions, the Biennale administration has ensured that this Vernissage was dominated big statements and loud protests.

There was a particular pleasure in seeing the Cannes line-up and finding that the most anticipated conversations were not about Hollywood titles but instead about films in Spanish, Polish, Farsi, French and Flemish. The 2026 edition of the world’s most high-profile film festival feels, in the best possible sense, like a reflection of a world that is tired of buying into US exceptionalism. While there are American entries from filmmakers James Gray (Paper Tiger) and Ira Sachs (The Man I Love), Hollywood does not dominate the dialogue. The aftermath of the writers’ and actors’ strikes, a wave of controversial studio mergers, the prohibitive costs of shooting in Los Angeles, and an increasingly inhospitable climate  towards the arts in the US have collectively loosened Hollywood’s grip on cinema – and voices from elsewhere have filled the space.

The Croisette is a place where the world’s finest films find an audience. Leading the charge this year is Pedro Almodóvar, whose Amarga Navidad (Bitter Christmas) is generating a deafening buzz. This work of autofiction follows a struggling director who draws on the tragedy of one of his collaborators to write his next film. He creates Elsa, another filmmaker whose life begins to reflect his own.

Director Paweł Pawlikowski, who has previously made historical trauma into something intimate in Ida and Cold War, returns with Fatherland. A family returns to Germany after years of exile to reckon with cultural identity and the long aftermath of conflict. His casting of the always phenomenal Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann, Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest) suggests a project of considerable ambition. 

Asghar Farhadi brings Histoires Parallèles (Parallel Tales), a web of intersecting Parisian narratives in which family secrets and moral compromises gradually entangle strangers. With Isabelle Huppert at its centre, the film arrives dripping in prestige. Farhadi’s gift for constructing ethical labyrinths from which there is no clean exit has made him one of contemporary cinema’s essential voices, and his presence at the Croisette speaks to a notable resurgence of Iranian filmmaking on the international stage (last year’s Palme d’Or was won by Jafar Panahi), while brutality rages within the country’s borders. Further East, Japan’s auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda dives into our collective technological anxieties with Sheep in the Box, following the story of a couple that replaces their late son with a robot, in part inspired by the classic French children’s novel The Little Prince.

Belgian director Lukas Dhont, whose 2022 film Close announced him as one of Europe’s most significant young voices, follows up with Coward, a title that hints at a darker, more confrontational register than his previous melancholic work. Meanwhile, Léa Mysius, whose screenwriting has shaped some of French cinema’s most distinctive films, steps back into the director’s chair with Histoires de la nuit (The Birthday Party), following a family preparing for a 40th-birthday celebration that turns into a nightmare when darkness falls.

None of this is to say that Hollywood will be an industry written off in 2027. Instead, what this year’s edition of Cannes suggests is that audiences who are willing to read subtitles will find no shortage of enriching work.

Japan 
While there might be few children elsewhere in the Giardini, Japan’s pavilion boasts roughly 200 babies. The dolls are hanging from the ceiling, creeping around fire extinguishers and roaming the pavilion’s perimeters. There’s even one peering down from the roof of the building. Visitors are invited to pick up and hold the weighted dolls or to even “change their diapers” (revealing a hidden QR code that leads to a poem). “The dolls weigh 5.5kg,” says artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. “It’s much heavier than you might expect, so usually people instantly smile and their facial expression softens. Until the show opened, I couldn’t have anticipated that.” The co-created performance is undoubtedly a strange one but it’s surprising how many who take part appear comforted by carrying around a doll. The result is tender and unexpectedly moving.   

Great Britain 
On entering the British pavilion, a soundscape transports visitors to an idyllic summer’s day in the countryside. Equally transportive are the paintings by this year’s artist chosen by the British Council, Lubaina Himid. Bright colours dominate the bold works that sometimes stretch across multiple canvases and depict vocational scenes of architects, tailors and chefs at work. While the soundscape (“of one of those ‘lovely day days’” in the words of Himid) and cheerful hues suggest a sunny outlook, on closer inspection there is a more complicated message about migration and assimilation. “Visitors come to any showing space with their own experience in their pockets,” Himid tells Monocle. “Me and my team are presenting something that is, in a sense, an imagined Britain. The visitors and the people in the paintings are trying to work out how you make sense of finding yourself in a place that seems welcoming – bright and full of promise – but isn’t your home.”

Syria 
The benefit of not having a pavilion in the Giardini or Arsenale is that it can give artists the opportunity to build something new. Syria’s Biennale representative, Sara Shamma, has recreated the tower tombs from the ancient city of Palmyra in Venice’s Dorsoduro district. The tombs were built between the 1st and 3rd centuries and destroyed in 2015. Inside Shamma’s ode to them is a tight yet thoughtful exhibition that combines paintings with a soundscape and scent created by historic perfume makers in Damascus. “We are witnessing the establishment of this new Syria,” Shamma tells Monocle. “And Syrians themselves now can participate in building this country. The pavilion is not just about what’s been lost, it’s really about a new beginning and a hopeful future.” 

Latvia 
This underrated yet intriguing pavilion in the Arsenale is a treat for anyone with an interest in fashion history. Here sculptures by artist duo Mareunrol’s bend and distort the paraphernalia of getting dressed. Garment bags and rucksacks are shaped into new, unexpected forms, while shiny rails and hangers come alive as they twist and intertwine with delicate bird sculptures. The presentation is combined with archival footage from the Untamed Fashion Assembly (UFA), founded by artist Bruno Birmanis. Between 1990 and 1999, the UFA held festivals of fashion, art and performance in Latvia. The films and stills on display in Venice document the rise of young Baltic designers in a time of both great artistic creativity and tumultuous politics. While the exhibition is memorable, Latvia has also made its mark on the Biennale by leading the “Death in Venice” campaign, which encourages visitors to show their opposition to Russia’s inclusion in the event. 

Australia 
It has been a particularly long road from Sydney to Venice for Australia’s artist representative Khaled Sabsabi. After being awarded the commission, it was rescinded last year because of criticism over early works celebrating Hassan Nasrallah, the former Hezbollah chief who was assassinated by Israel in 2024. The commission was later reinstated. Now he has a rare presence in both the Giardini and Arsenale with two installations of large-scale digitised paintings that slowly move and change colour as you stand in front of them. Calming and contemplative, the exhibits create a soothing space away from the bustle of the Biennale. “Both works were made at the same time,” Sabsabi tells Monocle. “They come from the same well of creativity. They have a direct relationship with each other in terms of philosophies connected to Sufism. It is about better understanding oneself and dispersing that upon humanity, collectively, regardless of ethnicity, faith, culture or time, so that it’s an open invitation to all.”

The low mark was Chengdu, 2019. Monocle was in town to host a conference about making better cities. It was a great event, well, until the incident.

Over the years, I have learned to enjoy being on stage moderating talks, interviewing interesting people. And, with practice, I have discovered a few tricks to keep my nerves in check and panellists feeling that they have been heard. 

In Chengdu I remember feeling rather happy with myself as I prepared to wrap my final panel, just pausing to take a couple of questions from the audience before exiting. I scanned the room for raised hands and, several rows back, spotted someone waving. “Can we get the mic to the gentleman in the black coat,” I said, not realising the calamity that was about to hit.

The audience turned to see who the questioner was and, along with me, discovered as soon as they began to ask their question that this was not a man but a woman. A Chinese woman with a 1930s-style, slick, gentleman’s-style haircut. Think of a Chengdu Poirot. I mumbled something about forgetting my glasses but I was too far down the hole to hope for any escape.

Later, at the cocktail reception, I scanned the room to position myself as far away as possible from where the woman who had befuddled my gender radar was standing. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her start weaving through the crowd like a shark (a very nice lady shark). And there she was in front of me. “So, you think I look like a man?” she said. I began to splutter out an apology and she just started laughing.

“I dress like a man, so people make this mistake every day,” she said smiling. It turned out she worked for the government and we ended up having an interesting conversation, exchanged cards even.
After this you might be sceptical about taking any advice from me on public speaking, running a panel or being a moderator but even this incident has helped to shape my thoughts on the topic. Here are 15 things I have learned (and as you can see, not always the easy way).

1.
Before an event, especially in an auditorium you have never been to, insist on seeing the stage and get up there while the theatre or venue is empty. What will this feel like?

2.
Learn over time how you like to be mic-ed up. Madonna-style headsets and lapel mics will leave your hands free but my preference is for a hand-held mic. It’s comforting having a prop and you are more in charge.

3.
Seating. I am happy to do a fireside chat in a cosy armchair – it works for intimacy, the unfolding of personal stories. Bar stools are OK if you work in tech. Or are in a bar. I also like standing. The energy level rises. You can walk the stage, look at the audience and keep a whole room engaged.

4.
Notes. If you can go note naked, do. Plot out the arc of your conversation, your talk, in advance. Then memorise key words that will trigger a series of questions, thoughts. Sometimes I will have some notes in my pocket, an insurance policy, but you will soon learn to leave them untouched.

5.
Nerves are good, embrace them. The jitteriness you feel before you go on stage is just adrenaline. Think of it as the body’s way of making you sharp, alert.

6.
Oh and feel free to take a second. Get to the lectern, find your seat and then breathe. Wait until you feel in control. Then start.

7.
Yes, you will need a glass of water to hand. Dry mouth, pause, drink, restart.

8.
If your session is late in the day, don’t get too friendly with the wine waiter at lunch. Or the buffet bonanza. It will slow your thoughts down.

9.
The audience is not your enemy (well, not usually). People buy tickets to talks and give up their time to hear you speak because they are interested. People want to have a good time. Remember that.

10.
If you are interviewing someone or running a panel, make sure that you listen to the answers people give. It allows the conversation to have surprising turns. Don’t follow an inflexible script.

11.
Be funny. Be moved. Be engaged.

12.
Keep your questions crisp, sharp and to the point. “How did you feel?” “Was that a mistake?”
 
13.
Keep to time. You might think this is the best debate or discussion ever but people want coffee, desperately need a wee. If it’s billed at 30 minutes, stop on the dot.
 
14.
Time will fly. Use it wisely. And sometimes that includes leaving time for a conclusion. A good moderator can pull together the ideas generated by a big panel in a mental goodie bag for the audience to depart with.
 
15.
Take questions. But make sure you wear your glasses.

To read more from Andrew Tuck, click here. 

1.
The rooftop playground
Onebite Design Studio

This new rooftop space in Tin Shui Wai, a satellite town in northwestern Hong Kong, was designed by Onebite Design Studio as a response to urban density. The firm’s research into the New Territories precinct found that the open space per person in the north of Tin Shui Wai was less than 1 sq m, falling far short of the government’s 3.5 sq m benchmark.

The squeeze forced Alan Cheung, the managing director and co-founder of Onebite, to rethink a car park in T Town shopping mall. “We wanted this rooftop to be a space that people can claim as their own,” he says of The Wonderful Town of Play.

Inspired by the popular Hong Kong Wetland Park, Cheung’s team created a 32,000 sq ft playground with nine attractions. Climbing frames and rides are paired with artworks of wetland fauna and information panels on native species, to educate and entertain the residents.

While the treehouse-inspired slides and five-metre-high adventure tower are the playground’s most striking elements, it’s the vivid floor artwork that binds the project together. “In contrast to tall attractions, which activate high-energy group play, the on-ground graphics enable the young ones to carve out spaces when they feel tired,” says Vivian Tsoi, Onebite’s landscape designer.

“We also took the parents and grandparents into consideration because they are the ones who take the kids here,” she adds. In addition to the play equipment, there are several seats for adults to oversee their toddlers, offering them both respite and peace of mind.

A range of people were present when Monocle visited on a midweek morning, from grandparents to teenage couples on the merry-go-round and, of course, young children having fun, oblivious to the thought that went into the playground.
onebitedesign.com

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2.
The peerless pier
New Office Works

A disused pier on the Kowloon Peninsula has been turned into a social space for residents by Hong Kong architects New Office Works. Once a weathered slab of concrete used for offloading cargo, it is now packed with people, even on weekdays. When Monocle stops by Townplace Pier, there are children playing, people fishing and couples watching the sun dip below the horizon.

Five ribbons of wave-like patterns create the canopy, which is supported by slender columns, giving the pier the look of a fishing village. Despite its size, it has an airy quality. “The pavilion sits on an existing structure, so we wanted to put something delicate on top,” says New Office Works’ co-founder Evelyn Ting. Some parts are covered to shelter people from the sunlight and rain, while others are exposed to the elements, creating patterns of light and shadow.

At first glance, the pavilion seems simple, but there is poetry to the construction – a trait that has come to define the firm’s projects. The steel columns mirror the material that is used to make ships, while the satin aluminium panels act as reflective ceilings. The columns double as pipes to channel rainwater. Even the austere-looking tiles are composed of four irregular shapes that complement the undulating roof.

“We see architecture as a language with which you can communicate in either a straightforward or subjective manner,” says Paul Tse, New Office Works’ other co-founder. “Through the interplay of structural forms and materials, we hope to create spatial conditions that can be interpreted in different ways and, ultimately, move people.”
newofficeworks.com

Further reading: Hong Kong’s new 13km promenade is revitalising community life and wellbeing

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3.
The international outpost
Snøhetta

“It took a long process to find our new home,” says Snøhetta’s managing director for Asia, Richard Wood. “We wanted a space that was large enough for us all to be in one space while maintaining street access.”

Since putting down roots in 2018, the Oslo architecture practice’s Hong Kong outpost has continued to scale new heights, chalking up a number of high-profile projects including the forthcoming Shanghai Grand Opera House and the Shibuya Upper West Project in Tokyo. To reflect this growth, Snøhetta’s Hong Kong studio recently moved into a larger office in Sai Ying Pun.

The L-shaped space features a large communal table for meals and meetings. To remove any obstacles to team building, everyone is assigned a new seat every year, cultivating a sense of community.

Flexibility matters too. Retractable partitions accommodate changing needs, from team huddles to exhibitions. “We don’t just show clients the final project,” says Wood. “We bring them into our office to create.”

Another defining office feature is its street-level entrance. By embracing the landscape, the hum of Hong Kong acts as a reminder of the team’s civic responsibility as architects. “We loosen up when we’re connected to the city. Buildings are meant to be used by people, which is why our office invites the neighbourhood in.”
snohetta.com

When it comes to handwriting, I’m ashamed to say my eight-year-old son has a better script than I do. Growing up in the late 1980s, my family were the kind of early technological adopters who would proudly pack me off to school with my word-processed homework even as my classmates wrote out every assignment by hand. 
 
As a result, my handwriting got stuck around the age of six and to this day resembles the scrawling of a child. My actual child, however, is educated in the French lycée system, where students start learning cursive in école maternelle (preschool). Now his beautifully looping vowels and joined-up consonants dance across the page, putting my written words to shame. 

It’s a regular feat of family fun to pore over my shopping lists, as my children take turns to guess the items that I have written down while howling with laughter. My ritual humiliation, however, is nothing compared to the embarrassment of some Americans who reportedly lack the penmanship skills to sign even the most basic financial documentation. 
 
“They can’t sign their mortgage,” Toby Overdorf, a Republican legislator in Florida’s House of Representatives, recently told fellow lawmakers in the Sunshine State. “They can’t sign a bank cheque and I was astonished by this.” 
 
Even worse, many American children apparently can’t read the US Declaration of Independence in its original 18th-century script, even as it takes a central role in classrooms this year as the nation celebrates its semiquincentennial.  
 
So last month, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill mandating that public schools teach cursive up to the fifth grade, part of a surprising resurrection across the US for a skill that many countries (the French not withstanding) declared moribund many years ago. Pennsylvania also mandated cursive writing in April, joining around half of US states that have revived the most traditional style of joined-up handwriting.
 
As well as allowing US kids to peruse the nation’s founding documents, proponents say that learning cursive helps to develop cognitive ability, hand-eye co-ordination, creativity and fine motor skills, as well as making it easier to identify potential learning disabilities. 
 
But this is a deeply partisan America and nothing is just about the best interests of the child: it is also inevitably about the politics. Reviving cursive has become a conservative cause, embraced as part of a return to the traditional values of the past and a rosy nostalgia for the pre-woke days of education. One of cursive’s most ardent supporters is former Oklahoma schools chief and now anti-union activist Ryan Walters, who achieved brief notoriety in 2024 when he tried to compel every Oklahoma classroom to have a copy of the bible that almost exclusively matched one endorsed by Donald Trump. 
 
But if it’s possible to put politics to one side, I’m all in favour of this revival of the classical writing style. Study after study shows us that learning in the analogue world is much more effective than on a screen. When we read on paper, our eyes dart across the pages between sentences and paragraphs, enhancing our comprehension and retention.
 
We also need to think about what skills children need going into a future jobs market dominated by AI. Children pick up technology quickly and intuitively: it’s literally designed that way, to be as easy to use and as addictive as possible. They don’t need to be taught how to use an iPad. With AI able to automate an increasing amount of our technological tasks, it makes sense to teach children a skill that helps them to slow down and think about what they want to say and how they want to say it. 
 
Then there is the connection to the people in our lives. Every time I sit down to write a thank you note, a birthday card or a condolence message, I wince at my messy writing. I long for those loops and curls that would show my respect and care for the recipient. 
 
So while it’s probably too late for me, I’m delighted that my offspring have acquired this skill – not least so I can start delegating those thank you notes and shopping lists to them.

Argentina’s wild-haired libertarian president, Javier Milei, made political hay for years by skewering his opponents and the opposition for their alleged illicit enrichment (writes Bryan Harris). Anti-corruption formed a central part of his political identity, and at every turn he has derided the establishment as “la casta” – a ruling caste of venal politicians.

Now his rhetoric might come back to haunt him. A series of mounting graft scandals involving top officials in his government now threatens to douse this political firebrand and his chances of re-election next year.

At the centre of the latest scandal is his cabinet chief, Manuel Adorni, who endured a marathon interrogation in Congress this week over a lavish lifestyle inconsistent with his public salary of around $2,500 (€2,123) per month. Adorni and his family, who deny all wrongdoing, have been caught by local media travelling by private jet to Punta del Este, a beach resort in Uruguay. They have also made a series of high-end real-estate purchases. And then there are the questions about the alleged $245,000 (€208,000) cash payment for renovations of a house purchased for less than half that price.

Instead of addressing these home truths, Milei has stood by Adorni. But the cabinet chief is not the only one facing tough questions. The head of Argentina’s tax-collection authority is the subject of a formal indictment over alleged omissions of multimillion-dollar foreign properties from his asset declarations, while a top official at the economy ministry was fired after it emerged that he had not declared his seven apartments in Florida.

The scandals are clearly irking Argentines, who voted for Milei in 2023 on the back of pledges to overhaul the political system. Now corruption ranks as a major public issue again, with polls showing it to be a major concern for 50.3 per cent of Argentines. Milei, meanwhile, appears to be foundering with an approval rating of 35.5 per cent. Despite a landslide victory in last year’s midterms, Milei is now at the weakest point of his term so far. What until recently looked like a safe re-election for Milei next year is now increasingly in doubt.

But corruption is not the only issue weighing on the minds of voters. Argentines appear to be tiring of the country’s lethargic economy. For years, Milei was given the benefit of the doubt as he implemented a programme of reforms and austerity, which succeeded in taming triple-digit inflation and bringing a semblance of stability to one of the world’s most fragile economies. 

Now discontent is rising as business activity slumps in manufacturing, retail and other major industries. Unemployment rose to 7.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2025, the highest level in five years. Real wages have fallen, while annual inflation remains stubborn at about 30 per cent.

Milei will continue to deal with challenges using his characteristic bravado. In a show of support for his cabinet chief, he appeared at Congress during Adorni’s hearing, flashing smiles and giving a big thumbs-up. When questioned by journalists, Milei and those in his government accused the press of being corrupt. Perhaps people in glass houses – whether in Buenos Aires or Washington – shouldn’t throw stones. 

You have to give German chancellor Friedrich Merz some credit for his honesty. This week he admitted that he had “no authority” to convince his own party to back his policies. And just last month he angered the White House by saying that US president Donald Trump was being “humiliated” in Iran. Both things might be true but one year into his tenure, neither comment will win him any friends or favours. 
 
At the helm of a teetering centrist coalition, Merz had little to celebrate during his anniversary in office this week. He might just be the Western world’s least popular leader, with approval ratings hovering at about 20 per cent, well below Donald Trump and on par with lame duck French president Emmanuel Macron and scandal-plagued UK prime minister Keir Starmer. Germany’s economy is stagnant and Merz’s relationship with Trump is in tatters. The US withdrew 5,000 of its troops from Germany this week – as it turns out, telling a narcissist that he has been humiliated is not shrewd diplomacy.

Domestically, Merz has very little to show for his first year in office: coalition infighting has delayed an ambitious health-and-welfare reform bill that was meant to be the administration’s headline act. Things started off well – major chunks of his electoral platform were approved before he even came into power, allowing an expenditure increase for infrastructure and defence, but it took his government until November to pass a budget that allowed it to start spending the money. That cash could help boost Germany’s economy before the year’s out, though Merz’s approval ratings will continue to plummet in the meantime. “It’s partly because he cannot show any progress, which he promised wholeheartedly,” says Annette Dittert, senior correspondent for Germany’s public broadcaster ARD. “But then it’s also very personal,” she adds, pointing to Merz’s “strange, erratic, capricious and jumpy” leadership style.
 
Maybe Merz was never really cut out for the job to begin with – he just doesn’t have the temperament. For a man who has wanted to lead Germany all his life, that will be a hard realisation to have. But Merz’s problem is about more than just his personality: he leads a fractious right-left coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, two parties that are traditionally at ideological odds. Despite some big promises, his administration has also been plagued by indecision. “Reform should have been done much earlier,” says Carsten Brzeski, chief economist of ING Germany. “If you’re an incoming government – think of Roosevelt or even Trump – it’s about the first 100 days.” 
 
Europe needs competent leadership that stands up to adversaries in Moscow and Beijing, as well as those in the White House. Doing so takes panache. Merz’s willingness to “tell it like it is” might be refreshing but it’s often tactless. Perhaps he could take a page out of Mark Carney’s book to smooth over his rougher edges and offer a more consistent message? For all his faults, however, the chancellor ensured that Germany was Europe’s biggest military spender in 2025 – and the country could yet become the continent’s leading military power in the next decade. 
 
Merz needs to use his penchant for straight-talking to prepare the German public for the challenges ahead and win over his reluctant party. Many of his coalition’s ideas aren’t bad, they’re just taking too long to implement. Unlike some of his European colleagues, he should have the luxury of another 100 days – and he must use them wisely.

Spring in Japan means cherry blossoms and new exhibition openings. Here are three cultural spots to add to your Tokyo itinerary.

Edo-Tokyo Museum
Ryogoku 

It would be hard to miss the hulk that is the Edo-Tokyo Museum. Designed by the late metabolist architect Kiyonori Kikutake and dedicated to the history of Tokyo, this landmark recently reopened after a four-year renovation. Architecture firm OMA were commissioned to nudge the museum into its next chapter. “Rather than physically altering the existing architecture, we took a somewhat ‘non-architectural’ approach, focusing on fully activating its unique spaces and highlighting its extraordinary collection,” says OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu. Music to the ears of those who appreciate Kikutake’s work, which is increasingly hard to find. 

The museum entrance has been refreshed with a procession of shrine-like red gates while the vast galleries now have ceiling projections, transforming static exhibits into immersive displays. There are recreations of old Tokyo buildings such as Nakamura-za kabuki theatre and Hattori Tokeiten (the 1881 watch shop where Seiko began); an Edo-era street and a prewar Dojunkai apartment in Daikanyama, complete with its distinctive metal front door and early-Showa decor. The dining room of a now-demolished house that stood in Shinagawa was saved and moved here, its mountain-cottage interior (all the rage in the early 20th century, apparently), preserved for posterity. Artefacts and visuals record details of everyday life in the city – even a 1980s school lunch – that would otherwise be forgotten. A fascinating trip through 400 years of Tokyo history and culture.  
edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp
1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida-ku

Mon Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives
Takanawa Gateway City, Shinagawa

Part of railway company JR East’s epic rejuvenation of a corner of Shinagawa (now known as Takanawa Gateway City), Mon Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives doesn’t have a specific theme or permanent collection. Instead, its open spaces and galleries are waiting to be used for whatever the curators put in them. In Japanese, mon can mean both “gate” and “question”, and Mon Takanawa is intended to be a place where modern and traditional culture can connect, with everything on the programme from performance and technology to academia and business. 

The institution’s swirling architecture was designed by Kengo Kuma (now drafting the extension for London’s National Gallery), who mostly used Japanese native plants to green the low-rise building. There’s a theatre, a relaxation area of about 100 tatami mats, an outdoor foot bath and panoramic restaurant. You’ll also find a compact farm, a Shinto shrine and seven types of cherry trees on the rooftop. The opening exhibition, Spiral, Spiral: Evolving Human Narratives (on view until 23 September) takes its cues from the museum’s architecture, a breezy exploration of spirals in Japanese culture from Jomon pottery to conveyor-belt sushi. 

If you go to Takanawa Gateway City, look out for the Newoman shopping centre and Ogawa Coffee’s new food court and book a lounge in the adjacent residential building. If the walk from one end to the other looks daunting, just hop on one of autonomous wooden vehicles that glide around the development.
montakanawa.jp
3-16-1 Mita, Minato-ku

Nonlecture books/arts
Shibuya

Shibuya Center-gai, the teeming heart of Shibuya, is brimming with shops and restaurants, but culture – once a key attraction – is sometimes overlooked. Department store Parco, which has been a feature of Shibuya since 1973, is the honourable exception and has long sponsored groundbreaking art shows and hosted theatrical and film events. Now it has opened Nonlecture books/arts, a freewheeling cultural oasis in a basement space on the crowded sloping street known as Spain-zaka. 

Co-sponsored by outdoor brand Goldwin, Nonlecture offers a lively mix of books on art, design and nature, as well as exhibitions, music and a drink stand serving coffee, wine and beer from microbrewery Vertere. The venue is already being used for talk sessions and book signings. Upcoming events include an exhibition featuring photographs by Ryuai Takano and a conversation with author Shinichi Takei about his book The History of Record Stores in Shibuya ~ & Beyond.

Hearteningly the organisers say: “This is not a place for trend or consumption…It quietly aims to exist as an extension of everyday life in the city of Shibuya.” A welcome breath of fresh air and an excellent addition to the neighbourhood.
nonlecture.jp
Shibuya Zero Gate B1, 16-9 Udagawa-cho, Shibuya-ku

It would be fascinating to know how far ahead Vladimir Putin of Russia was thinking when he ordered his legions across Ukraine’s borders in February 2022. If he gave much thought to the general picture around the 2026 observances of Victory Day – the Russian holiday that commemorates the Nazi surrender in 1945 that takes place on Saturday – he might well have imagined Russia’s flag flying over Kyiv, Odesa and even Moldova, the sputtering remnants of Free Ukraine confined to a few western oblasts around Lviv. Perhaps, he thought, he might send a sarcastic postcard to whichever Siberian penal colony now confined that impertinent comedian Volodymyr Zelensky.
 
Unless Putin proves to have been a surprisingly assiduous diarist, we will never find out. We can, however, be certain that he did not anticipate the present circumstances that this year’s Victory Day build-up has brought into sharp focus. Zelensky, Putin’s nemesis, is not only still in office but conceivably Earth’s most admired individual. Earlier this week he also skipped down the steps of his official jet to attend a European Political Community summit in Yerevan, capital of Armenia – both a former Soviet republic and a country the Putin of 2022 would have assumed was intractably in Russia’s orbit.

On the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia has incurred – by Ukrainian estimations – around 1.3 million casualties. Though Ukraine has also suffered dreadful losses, it is remaking itself as the arsenal not only of Europe but also the Middle East, exporting its air defence and drone expertise to Gulf countries beset by Russian ally Iran. Ukrainian drones strike inside Russia frequently: in the early hours of Monday, one hit an apartment block in the fancy Moscow neighbourhood of Ramenki, 11 stops on the metro from Red Square, over which the Victory Day parade will trundle.
 
That event itself will not be the awesome pageant of Russian firepower that Putin would have preferred beaming at from the reviewing stand. It was announced last week that proceedings would be scaled down due to a “terrorist threat” from Ukraine, which we should interpret as fear that Ukrainian drone operators might perceive this display of martial grandeur as an irresistible target for mischief. This week, Russia was reduced to suggesting a ceasefire for 8–9 May and expressing hope that Ukraine would join it. Zelensky retorted by suggesting one for 5–6 May and expressed hope that Russia would join it, waspishly noting that “human life is incomparably more valuable than the ‘celebration’ of any anniversary”.
 
More miserably still for Putin, plausible reporting suggests that he is now contemplating all of the above largely from bunkers. He has made only two public appearances this year and images of him on television are substantially pre-recorded. He is said to be plagued by fear of assassination – especially since last December’s car-bombing of Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov and February’s shooting of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, both in Moscow – or a coup. He meets few people in person and his personal staff are forbidden from using smartphones or public transport. He is said to be morbidly micromanaging the war in Ukraine. A keen student of history, Putin will be well aware of the unhappy parallels that might be drawn with another leader whose ambitions of territorial expansion had gone awry in 1945, finding himself cloistered in a subterranean lair, frantically moving imaginary divisions around a map, accompanied by only the most dogged of loyalists.
 
It is, of course, far from impossible that these reports, originating with European intelligence services, are some combination of wishful thinking and “psychological operations” intended to further stoke Putin’s paranoia. But nobody’s patience lasts forever, not even Russia’s. Saturday will be Putin’s fifth Victory Day since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began – and there’s still no victory in sight.
 
Andrew Mueller is a contributing editor and the host of Monocle Radio’s The Foreign Desk. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Further reading:
– ‘Putin is poisoning generations of Russians’: Mikhail Kasyanov on the future of the nation he once led