Do you have a steady, dependable, perhaps even a bit too predictable circuit? Or are you the type who likes to mix it up? Perhaps you reverse your morning walk or run (supposedly it’s good for your brain), or just venture out and see where the next 45 minutes take you? When I’m up in St Moritz, there’s a circuit around the lake and if I feel like extending things by 20 minutes I can hang a left into the forest, take in another lake and then pick up the usual path. 

In Zürich, it’s down to the lake, along the shore, up into the forest, back down through the village for a coffee and then another kilometre back to the apartment. It took a while to establish the right route in Lisbon but thankfully we’re in a flat stretch of the city and Campo Grande, with the occasional spin around Alvalade, does the trick. If you digested our June issue, you’ll know that coffee is an important morning motivator and the maker of neighbourhoods. On Friday, I flew to Toronto and, first thing on Saturday morning, it was over the bridge at Old Mill, up through Baby Point and along Annette Street to the Organic Press Café for a very good flat white and a little perch in the sun. Right after, I managed to secure a walk-in spot at The Baby Point Barbershop for a speedy beard trim, made my way down to Bloor Street to pick up the weekend newspapers (Lachlan, Rupert, you need to start doing a Europe print run of The Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition please!) and then back to mom’s. 

As circuits go, the Toronto version is the most interesting – in part because it overlaps with my old walk to school and in part because it has the most range. Through Baby Point it’s all manicured lawns and elegant homes, along Bloor Street it’s a jumble of retail and Ukrainian banks, and back towards mom’s everything carries a familiar name – Brûlé Gardens, Brûlé Terrace, Étienne Brûlé Park. And remarkably, so far none renamed or cancelled. 

Two hours later, we embarked on a circuit of a different kind. After years of promised visits and aborted plans, a sturdy Cessna Caravan bounced us down a runway at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport en route The Ojibway Club at Pointe au Baril. After a sharp left turn around the towers of downtown Toronto, pilots Joel and Conor (combined age 45) made a straight line for Georgian Bay. Around 50 minutes later, the boys delicately put the Caravan down in front of the club and shortly after we were tying up and exchanging greetings with our hostess for the weekend. 

In another column I will tell you all about my 40-year friendship with Christine but today I’ll just say that she (and her full family, bonkers hounds included) hosted us for what is likely to be the best 36 hours of the year. The setting (very Swedish), the architecture, the crowd (WASPy old Toronto), the boat trips and the endless summer eve was about as good as life gets under the Canadian flags fluttering across the archipelago. The next day our circuit was southbound back to downtown Toronto, dinner at the tasty Taberna LX and then back across the Atlantic with mom for the official start of the summer season here at our bathing club in Zürich. Not quite The Ojibway Club but a similar food group.

Looking forward to seeing you next Saturday at our summer party in Merano.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.

Monocle has always been loud about its love for Tokyo. However, though it has been a regular fixture of our annual Quality of Life Survey, which assesses cities based on their liveability, it hadn’t topped our charts since 2017 – until now. We checked in with our Tokyo bureau chief, Fiona Wilson, for an on-the-ground view of life in the Japanese capital and the quality of life that it offers.

Check out the full list of charting cities here.

Let’s start with the important things. Can you get a decent meal after 22.00 in Tokyo? 
Easily. Lots of options are open 24 hours. Izakayas, ramen joints and yakitori counters stay open well into the early-morning hours, especially in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Shinbashi, Ikebukuro and other hubs.

And when you emerge from a restaurant, are the streets safe, busy and lively, even late at night? 
Yes. Tokyo consistently ranks as one of the world’s safest capitals. Bars stay open until about 02.00 but some keep going after that and it’s very common to see people walking alone in the early hours. 

What about your journey home? Is public transport clean, affordable and efficient? 
Tokyo’s 23 special districts are served by one of the world’s most extensive and punctual public transportation networks. About 84 per cent of the area inside Loop Road No 7 (encompassing central Tokyo) is within a 10-minute walk of a train station, while an efficient bus system connects the rest of the city. Trains, buses and stations are meticulously cleaned daily. Graffiti and litter are virtually non-existent. Fares are distance-based and start at ¥170 (€0.90). 

What about cyclists? What is Tokyo’s bike culture like? 
It’s good and improving too. Many locals rely on everyday city bikes to get to grocery shops, train stations or schools. Mamachari (“mum’s bike”) are ubiquitous on Tokyo’s streets, often fitted with front and rear child seats for the school run. Though dedicated cycling infrastructure is limited, neighbourhoods are generally calm and shared harmoniously between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. Tokyo has a public bike-sharing network, Docomo Bike Share, which is available in 16 out of 23 wards (all e-bikes).

After a late night of revelling, we all need a more easygoing day. Are shops open on Sundays?
Yes, Tokyo’s commercial districts are bustling. If smaller neighbourhood spots do close, they generally observe rest days from Mondays to Wednesdays. In the city’s many shopping districts, bookshops, supermarkets, designer boutiques and department stores coexist on the same block. But some neighbourhoods specialise – Kappabashi is known for its kitchen equipment, for example.

How about the park culture? 
Tokyo has plenty of lush, manicured gardens. Seasonal events such as hanami and autumn foliage attract a lot of people to its parks. The major ones feel like attractions in their own right, whether it’s Ueno Park with its world-class museums, Yoyogi Park bordering Meiji Shrine or Shinjuku Gyoen, which has an admission fee of ¥500 (€2.70). 

Is there a good city newspaper?
Tokyo doesn’t have an equivalent of London’s The Standard or Le Parisien because the press is consolidated nationally rather than locally. The Tokyo Shimbun is the most prominent city newspaper, though it’s not central to the public discourse. The dominance of Japan’s “Big Five” national newspapers – including the Yomiuri Shimbun and The Asahi Shimbun, each with circulations that dwarf Western counterparts – often overshadows the value of having a more local paper. For the English-reading population, bimonthly Tokyo Weekender is good. It has 20,000 print readers, plus 300,000 monthly digital readers. Each of the 23 wards publishes its own free kuho bulletin, covering neighbourhood notices. 

Is the housing attractive, abundant and well made? 
Housing in Tokyo is highly attractive for its safety and convenience, though units tend to be more compact than in Western cities. There are plentiful options throughout the city. The market favours newer builds, with older homes frequently demolished. Everything is made to the world’s strictest earthquake engineering standards.

How welcoming is Tokyo to newcomers? 
Tokyoites are very polite and famously helpful on a one-to-one level. This personal warmth is mirrored by the city’s hyper-supportive infrastructure and public safety. But everyday admin (such as banking or renting an apartment) requires navigating a lot of bureaucracy and a language barrier, which can be daunting. While not speaking Japanese can make true social integration challenging for expats, society here is deeply rooted in mutual respect. Moving past surface-level conversations is entirely possible, though it requires dedication to learning the language and an awareness of social cues and cultural norms. 

Is the public school system a success?
Japan has maintained a high level of equity across its public education system. Funding, the curriculum and teacher rotations are strictly centralised, keeping quality consistent regardless of how wealthy a neighbourhood is. Beyond academics, schools excel at fostering a sense of community responsibility. The enrolment rate for upper secondary school (beyond mandatory education) stands at an impressive 98 per cent. 

And what’s the tax system like? 
Its top marginal tax rate of 55.95 per cent impedes Tokyo’s ability to compete with low-tax Asian rivals such as Singapore or Hong Kong but its exceptional public infrastructure and subsidised health care provide a much higher quality-of-life ROI than high-tax Western cities such as New York or London.

Does the city have ambition? How does it talk about itself? 
Tokyo’s ambition is calculated, infrastructural and long term. The city imagines its future in terms of resilience and order. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Tokyo 2050 strategy lays out a 30-point technocratic vision of telework adoption targets, congestion reduction and even commercial flying cars. The Japanese capital’s confidence stems from the fact that it’s already a global leader in safety, efficiency and infrastructure. 

See our full 2026 Quality of Life Survey ranking here.

Wayfinding is an art form and one too often neglected. There is a whole industry built around this craft that seeks to manoeuvre us around airports, hospitals and cities using signs, graphics and clever design decisions. Perhaps the biggest compliment that you can pay practitioners of this trade is to say that you have never noticed their work: the outcomes of their deliberations should guide you along silently, unobtrusively. And if wayfinders are allowed to work on an architectural project from an early stage, the outcome can be a building, a place, that you navigate almost intuitively.
 
But when wayfinding is done badly? Yikes, you’re in trouble. Changing planes in Madrid-Barajas airport? Make sure you put aside a day. The wayfinding feels like the work of the mayor of Crazy Town. You follow signs that divert you up stairs, down escalators and some 10 minutes later return you to where you started. Your confidence ebbs. You start contemplating taking up permanent residence by the jamón counter. Berlin’s public transport system? You need to attend evening classes before heading out to the airport.

On Wednesday, we had a company meeting in Paris but before the team rendezvous I had been booked to appear on France24 to talk about The Monocle Quality of Life Survey and the French capital’s ranking in eighth position (up two spots, so no guillotine anticipated). They wanted me at the studios by 13.00 and on air at 13.50. From the map app on my phone, I could see the journey would take a modest 30 minutes on the Metro from Monocle’s Rue Bachaumont HQ. The Metro isn’t complicated but after a couple of stops I needed to switch on to an RER train and suddenly the wayfinding went from gentle guiding hand to “spin this fool around and see if he can ever get to his destination”. My map app had totally given up on me, replaced by a laughing emoji.

I asked a local for help and, after turning my phone this way and that, he guided me to the platform. Being cautious, I double-checked with another confident-looking gent who said that I was in the totally wrong place. “It’s very difficult to find the right train unless you know the system,” he confided. Even once on the correct platform, you needed to know which of the numerous incoming trains was yours – and there was no map. By now it was already 13.10 and I was regretting wearing a jacket and pressed shirt on such a steamy day.

A young couple asked if perhaps I needed assistance (or putting in a care home). I concurred (to the former). They then stood with me, put me on the right train and waved me goodbye like a child off to school for the first time. I arrived at the studios perspiring, my nice shirt now clinging to me as though I was entering the seniors round of a wet T-shirt competition. Fifteen minutes later, I was on air.
After the show, I booked a car.

And this is why good urban wayfinding matters – because when it becomes muddled, disjointed, it triggers a loss of confidence in people. Once that happens, there are all manner of consequences. Buildings need to staff up information desks, tourists jump on the crammed hot Metro rather than walk, people give up on life and throw themselves in the Seine (at least it’s clean now).

I was booked on the last Eurostar back to London on Thursday and, not to be defeated by the eighth best city in the world, rode a Lime bike through the city to Gare du Nord. People were out in force on this hot night. At many bars people were glued to TV screens – perhaps watching a repeat airing of a sweaty Englishman on France 24? No, damn them, it was the England vs DR Congo football match.

I took my Eurostar seat, settled in and thought to myself: Paris is amazing – well, as long as you can find it.

During a recent trip to Shanghai, I called in on the headquarters of tile company Yi Design and had a fascinating chat with founder Caroline Cheng about all things China. Among the many things that we discussed was the need for Chinese brands to represent themselves abroad. Cheng floated the idea of a “China House” in London to represent the best of the country’s culture and commerce, similar to Japan House on Kensington High Street.

It’s a genius idea and it comes at a time when some in London are oddly spooked about Beijing’s new embassy at the former Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London (yes, it will be home to Chinese spies, just like the existing embassy in Marylebone and pretty much every UK and US embassy in China).

Since China House should be a shop window rather than a show of strength, a street-facing address in Covent Garden would do nicely. Xie Ke could design it, Li Xibin could brand it and Yi Design could supply the tiles for the ground-floor café and retail space. Private companies should bankroll it entirely and showcase some real-world companies and products that are not yet household names in Europe.

Here are the five that we would start with, including a tea brand ready to take over Western capitals, an airline’s front-of-house staff, the shoe we should all be wearing and a very good air-con maker. 

1.
Midea 

As Europe swelters through another scorching summer, it’s time for Midea – one of the world’s largest air-conditioning manufacturers – to make its consumer mark. The white-goods powerhouse from Foshan is a hidden giant of Chinese industry. It already makes much of the behind-the-scenes machinery for other brands and owns a stable of international home-appliance companies, including Toshiba and Teka. Own-brand Midea has been winning multiple awards at European trade fairs for design and its logo will appear on FC Barcelona’s home shirts next season – a sure sign of its ambitions to compete at the top with the likes of Daikin, Samsung and LG. Premium brand Colmo should be showcased at China House and Midea’s founder, He Xiangjian, could cover the construction costs. One of China’s top-10 richest people, Xiangjian is a generous benefactor of science and the arts. He also owns his own vineyard in Ningxia, so that’s the wine list sorted.

2.
Chagee 

The birthplace of tea should have a teahouse rather than a café. A high-traffic corner of Covent Garden would be a strong London debut for Chagee, which has already taken Asia by storm. My local in Bangkok replaced a La Cabra from Denmark and it’s only a matter of time before Europeans are walking around the streets of London, Paris and Copenhagen carrying cups of Bo Ya green tea and Da Hong Pao milk tea. The brand’s roots go back to Kunming in Yunnan province. Founder Zhang Junjie spent years working in a second-tier milk-tea business before launching his own brand in 2017. The positioning is similar to Starbucks and its red-and-white logo has the same impact in Asia as the Siren of Seattle. It’s a complete package and this should take Chagee beyond other brands such as Heytea. 

3.
Juneyao 

Recruiting airline crew to be front-of-house staff would be a smart choice for China House, given their existing roles as de facto country ambassadors. Alas, most of China’s airlines are state-owned and generally drab (except Sichuan Airlines, which leans into its native panda population and famous cuisine). So, we would team up with an under-the-radar rising star of the private sector, Juneyao Airlines. The Shanghai-headquartered airline is known locally as “milk air” because the founders – three brothers from Wenzhou – made their money in the dairy business. The airline targets higher-end travellers and frequent flyers talk highly of the lounge experience. Twenty years after its maiden commercial flight took off from Shanghai, Juneyao is growing its direct flights to European cities. The Wang brothers pioneered private flights in the mainland in the 1990s and, with a new livery, they could be the ones to build the country’s first international aviation brand.

4.
Pane

Uniforms will be another key component of China House’s success. As those who attended Monocle’s The Entrepreneurs conference can attest, China has no shortage of fashion designers. We could go with talents such as Shushu/Tong, Samuel Guì Yang or any number of the up-and-coming graduates being mentored by Tasha and Justin from Labelhood. Staff at China House would look sleek and nimble-footed in a pair Pace Nostalgia 60s by Pane, which was established in Shanghai in 2022. Founder Chen Ning went from finance and fashion to footwear and Pane’s classic styles take cues from the German army trainer. Demand for its shoes is even causing supply issues. I went to buy myself a pair at Pane’s beautiful flagship on Yongyuan Road and watched most groups walk past the neighbouring Onitsuka Tiger shop. Several Europeans walked out with boxes to bring home before Pane’s international expansion gets under way.

5.
Zeekr

Cars are a pillar of any national brand-building exercise and China’s best chance of following Japan and South Korea’s route from cheap manufacturing threat to genuine competitor and respected leader. BYD has done an admirable, Toyota-style job of establishing a reputation for quality and value for money. Now it is time for rival Geely, based in Hangzhou, to deliver a premium brand that can tempt the Lexus customer. Volvo-owner Geely launched Zeekr in 2021 and put an ex-Audi design veteran behind the wheel. The Zeekr 9X is already the executive ride of choice in Shanghai and the flagship model is expected to hit the UK capital by the end of this year. Parking one outside China House would be a fetching advertisement. But there should also be a fleet in the basement carpark to provide a set of wheels for high spenders at the shop. Geely already makes London’s black cabs and China knows better than most how to chauffeur its VIP guests in style.

Tokyo is a treat for art lovers. From big public institutions to private museums and galleries, there are thousands of venues across the city that show everything from precious Japanese artefacts to global names in contemporary art.

Some sites are noteworthy for their architecture: the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum is housed in a 1933 art deco residence adorned with glass by René Lalique (currently the backdrop for an exhibition of works by British ceramic artist Lucie Rie). Other locations are known for their speciality: the Ota Memorial Museum of Art is dedicated to the art of ukiyo-e (with a collection of some 14,000). While there are plenty of spaces to head to in the city, here are three photography exhibitions to start with this summer.

‘Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction’
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Hiroshi Sugimoto is Japanese art’s most impressive polymath: antiquities dealer, tea practitioner and architect (his Enoura Observatory in Odawara is a notable example) are just some of his many hats. At the heart of his creativity, however, is his exquisite gelatin silver photography, which is the subject of this extensive exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art. 

The show features works from all 13 of Sugimoto’s photographic series, taken from the 1970s to today, in three roughly chronological chapters. New additions to renowned series such as Seascapes, Dioramas and Stylized Sculpture are seen for the first time. The show was hung and lit by the artist and his team, putting Sugimoto’s technical brilliance on display. 

Also worth a look is the side exhibition on the third floor, featuring the museum’s own collection of works by Sugimoto and the artist’s thought-revealing notebooks. The exhibition title is double edged: a reference to the anticipated extinction of silver gelatin as a medium, and eventually, the work of the artist himself. 

‘Hiroshi Sugimoto: Extinction’ is on view until 13 September; momat.go.jp

‘I’m So Happy You Are Here’ 
Hikarie Hall, Bunkamura Museum of Art

This touring exhibition (which accompanies the English-French bilingual book of the same name) is finally making its way to Japan. The show celebrates the work of female Japanese photographers who were active from the 1950s to the present. First opening to great acclaim in Arles in 2024, this expanded Japanese iteration, curated by art critic Mariko Takeuchi, features more photographers – bringing the line-up to 30 names – and comes with its own catalogue.

The artists featured in the exhibition span generations and photographic approaches. Artists include Eiko Yamazawa, born in 1899 and one of Japan’s first female photographers; Hitomi Watanabe, who began working in the 1960s; and contemporary star Mari Katayama, whose work often explores her identity as a double amputee. Seen together, the works offer fresh perspectives on historical events.

The roughly 200 works on view address memory, the body and the everyday through installations, collages and moving images, in addition to traditional still photography. The exhibition is presented by the Bunkamura Museum of Art – currently mid-relocation and expansion – which has staged the show on its home turf in Shibuya. To complement the exhibition, the museum is hosting related events, including art screenings at Bunkamura Le Cinéma Shibuya Miyashita.  

The exhibition runs from 4 July to 26 August; bunkamura.co.jp 

‘Tomorrow’s Dining Table’
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

Step inside Yebisu Garden Place in Ebisu and you’ll find the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (TOP). Founded in 1995 by Tokyo’s metropolitan government, it’s the city’s only public museum dedicated to photography, serving an important role in displaying historical and contemporary still and moving images.

Tomorrow’s Dining Table draws from TOP’s roughly 39,000-strong collection to look at food from a social perspective, focusing on its connection to families, aging, farming and the environment. There are photographs by 14 artists on display, including Rinko Kawauchi and Tokuko Ushioda, whose works tap into the shared memory of the family dinner; and Minoru Yamada, one of the first generation of postwar Okinawan photographers, represented by a touching image of a man and his children at Itoman fishing port in 1960. 

The exhibition is open from 2 July to 21 September; topmuseum.jp 

Bars-tabacs, bars that sell scratch cards and tobacco products among other paraphernalia, are closing across France. There was once a time when almost every village had one. Now barely a day goes by that I don’t pass by a boarded-up bar with faded, peeling letters spelling out tabac. Where these institutions have closed, votes for the Jordan Bardella-led Rassemblement National (RN), France’s most prominent far-right party, have risen sharply. Bars-tabacs were never hotbeds of liberal thinking like Viennese cafés – but here lies the opportunity. Should Renaissance, president Emmanuel Macron’s party, and the left begin to court the boozing, smoking and gambling sect of France’s population by reopening them?
 
A study conducted by the Centre for Economic Research and its Applications (Cepremap) found that some 18,000 bars-tabacs had closed across the country between 2002 and 2022. It revealed that while the initial effect of their closure on the far-right vote was small, as time went on, the RN vote increased dramatically in affected districts.

With the next presidential election set for mid-April and early May 2027, France faces the very real possibility of a far-right president for the first time in its history. The RN already saw dramatic gains in the March 2026 local council elections.
 
There’s a comforting universality to bars-tabacs in France. Similarly to an airport bar, the laws of time are different. Go mid-morning and there will be plenty of customers drinking lager, while others are still nursing an espresso. There’s always a wall of tobacco products and countertop shelves filled with scratch cards. More often than not there’s also a TV showing a sports match or horse race. But much like the airport saloon, a bar-tabac isn’t the first place where I’d personally choose to announce my political leanings. The discourse in these establishments is, in my experience, generally more right-leaning.
 
I called on friends that come from regions with particularly dramatic increases in votes for the RN in the 2022 presidential elections: the Gard, Pas-de-Calais and Lozère. Marine Le Pen won the majority in the first two and took home almost 46 per cent of the second-round vote in the third. All had seen the number of local bars-tabacs decline significantly over the past few decades. 
 
Each source told me the same thing: the bar-tabac is often the only place to socialise in rural areas. Everyone goes, regardless of their social class or economic means because it’s quite simply the only place nearby. It’s regularly the last place to shut down, a symbol of the final death knell for a once-thriving village high street. If there’s no bar, there’s probably no library, no cultural centre and no restaurant. The friend in Lozère reported the most significant drop in her town: from 15 bars to one between the 1960s and the present day.
 
Without a space such as a bar-tabac to come together, villagers inevitably spend more time alone. Instead of going to his local, where someone might contradict him, Jean-Claude stays at home (“likely watching CNews,” [France’s most-watched, far-right-leaning news channel], says one friend).

In the run-up to the previous French presidential elections in the first trimester of 2022, a disproportionate amount of airtime on news channels was accorded to far-right candidates, namely Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, the leader of Reconquête (France’s other major far-right party). Centre-right and far-right candidates consistently held the most airtime during the first 12 weeks of 2022, with only the 13th week, right before the first round of voting, bucking the trend. 
 
Centre-left candidates are missing a trick. Voters miss their local bar-tabac and the RN are weaponising the isolation caused by these closures. “La France des oubliés” (forgotten France), the idea that rural parts of the country have been left by the wayside, was a political slogan successfully used by Le Pen during the 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns. But since Cepremap found that the effect was also reversible – where bars-tabacs opened, the vote for the RN decreased – the answer to beating Bardella next spring might just lie in betting big on the bar. 

Anna Richards is a Lyon-based writer. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
 
Further reading:
– What Macron’s Dior habit says about the politics of presentation and the smell of success

– In Italy the real dolce vita experience is at the village ‘sagra’

– The villages of Spain’s fast-emptying rural heartlands have plenty to teach us

Being vice-president is one of the trickiest jobs in the business. It requires a deft hand at appeasing the big boss while not looking too hungry for their job. But for JD Vance, the juggling act reached new heights in June as he faced his toughest task so far – negotiating peace with Iran while subtly trying to distance himself from a president with nosediving approval ratings.

The Apprentice parallels are plentiful, as Donald Trump promises (jokingly, Vance claims) that his vice-president will take the fall should the Iran deal fail. Trump is even said to be quizzing his closest allies about whether they think Vance has what it takes for the top job – and dropping hints that he might prefer secretary of state Marco Rubio as his successor. But the 41-year-old deputy appears unfazed as he starts positioning himself, ever so slightly, apart from the man who supercharged his political career. 

On 16 June, Vance released a new memoir that The New York Times called “a running start on defining his political philosophy just as the 2028 presidential race… begins to take shape”. The book, Communion, is ostensibly about his journey away from the nondenominational Christianity of his chaotic childhood in rural Ohio and his conversion to Catholicism. That childhood was the subject of Vance’s hugely successful debut book, Hillbilly Elegy, which detailed his mother’s struggles with drug addiction and his upbringing by his larger-than-life grandmother. It became the must-read tome of 2016 among conservatives and liberals alike, as people sought to understand the grievances that had sent voters from the rural working class into the arms of Trump.

Communion doesn’t quite pull off the same feat. In the intervening years, Vance has gone from feted author to Maga darling, taking his working class, up-by-the-bootstraps political brand and hitching it to the Trump bandwagon. No one thinks of him as a representative of the rural poor anymore. 

While the book details his adoption of Catholicism, his other conversion from never-Trumper who called the president “America’s Hitler” to attack-dog-in-chief for the president is perhaps more interesting. If the account in Communion is to be believed, it was not naked ambition that prompted this U-turn but a conscious decision to prioritise policy over his disapproval of Trump’s combative style. 

Policy aside, Trump gave Vance’s political career a major boost, supporting his successful 2022 bid for Ohio’s US Senate seat and then naming him as a presidential running mate two years later. On the page, Vance repays that loyalty. Trump is mentioned 40 times (The New York Times counted), all in fawning tones. After all, those hoping for a promotion would be loath to denigrate their boss.

But Vance positions himself as a different political beast from the president, as well as someone guided by deeply held moral and religious convictions. Counter to Trump’s wealthy New Yorker persona, Vance presents himself as a regular guy, with regular work-life balance concerns such as finding the time to brush his daughter’s hair before they go to church on Sunday. In the book, he seems to be striving for some middle ground, advocating for putting Christianity at the heart of government while also saying that a person does not have to be a Christian to be a good American (which his wife Usha, a practicing Hindu, will be pleased to hear). 

The promotional tour for the book looked very much like a practice run for the campaign trail. On a variety of media outlets he attempted to present the warm and fuzzy side of a man who can come across as both awkward and aggressive. There was contrition for the “childless cat ladies” comments of 2021, which alienated huge swaths of women and cat lovers – he concedes it was a “boneheaded” statement. 

All the work to sell himself as a likeable candidate for America’s next president could be undone, however, if he fails to secure a lasting deal with the Iranian regime. As the US and Iran continue to trade strikes in the Strait of Hormuz, Vance has been in Switzerland hammering out the details of the end of the war, which has been deeply unpopular in the US. Yet even though most Americans support its end, less than half of the Maga faithful think that the US-Iran agreement is in the country’s best interest. 

Anything less than a perfect deal that favours the US could be “career ending” for Vance, says Thomas Whalen, associate professor at Boston University and an expert on vice-presidential dynamics. “That has always been a traditional role of vice-presidents,” he adds. “The president doesn’t want to receive the criticism, so [he’ll] get the vice-president to take the flak for him.”

But even if Vance does weather the current storm, Whalen believes that he is in an impossible position. The greatest hurdle to a JD Vance presidency could be Trump himself, whose capricious behaviour has proven that he can turn on his allies in a second. “It’s like Trump is the whale,” says Whalen, “and [Vance] is the little insignificant pilot fish in his wake, waiting to get crushed.”

As heatwaves stretch longer, affecting more people and cities across the world, many centres of human life are becoming increasingly unliveable. More greenery, shade and water would help but these alone aren’t enough. We also need cool spaces where the temperature, noise and light levels allow our bodies to rest. Fortunately, bringing urban temperatures down is a challenge that humanity has faced for millennia and there’s a lot that we can learn from ancestral technologies. For example, ancient Persian structures such as the yakhtchal or badguir offer effective but low-technology design solutions.

A yakhtchal is a vast communal fridge built from porous materials (eggshells, ground plants and even goat hair), designed to hold ice harvested in winter and keep food cool during summer. A badguir is a wind tower that catches hot air, channels it towards cold underground water, then circulates the cooled air back into living spaces: passive air conditioning making use of climate knowledge, materials and physics.

As a designer and artist, I have tried to reinterpret some of this thinking for today. With architect Imma Sierra, I designed a piece called “Pavillon de l’air”, a covered bench in a semicircle with a slanted fabric roof providing shading throughout the day. The roof is coated in beeswax, which allows rainwater to flow down ventilated terracotta walls below, where it’s stored. When heat warms the hollow bricks through which air can flow, the water is released, cooling the structure through evapotranspiration. The properties of the pavilion’s materials bring temperatures down without electricity.

We also need to make more use of underground spaces. Beneath the streets of Paris (topping Monocle’s 2025 liveable cities index), for instance, there are old railway tunnels, underground chambers and more. These places – La Petite Ceinture, the quarries and catacombs – are naturally cool and quiet. We explored these subterranean locations for a project called “14C”, another collaboration with architect Imma Sierra, which we are showing at this year’s Venice Biennale. Though often inaccessible or neglected, such spaces have enormous potential as sanctuaries from extreme heat. By incorporating elements such as natural light, reflective surfaces, plants and art, we could turn them into inviting underground piazzas where people can gather, cool down and reset.

I collaborate a lot with scientists to ensure that my projects are grounded in data. This was how the “14C” project discovered that the temperature beneath Paris stabilises at a depth of 10.84 metres, a fact that could inform the creation of effective and sustainable cooling solutions in the future.

Though I like low-technology solutions, I’m not against innovation (“14C” wouldn’t have been possible without thermal-imaging cameras). Electric cars reduce noise pollution. Ancestral technologies and new ones don’t need to contradict each other. We must combine ancient and cutting-edge design, with a little more attention given to simpler solutions.

We hear a lot about smart cities but those conversations shouldn’t just be about sensors and data. A yakhtchal, a shaded piazza, a quiet underground tunnel that’s open to the public – all of these are smart. Climate resilience can come from new technology but also from making the most of what already exists: the sun, the wind, the materials at hand.

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Air-con has become the latest front in a culture war – but more hot air is the last thing our overheating cities need

As the US celebrates its 250th birthday, an architectural playbook is being deployed in Washington. It’s one that we’ve seen before. A few months after the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Adolf Hitler and architect Albert Speer revealed a masterplan to reconceive Berlin, even renaming it “Germania”. The plan was political and spatial, to represent the new metropole of a vast global empire. Its cornerstone investments? An enormous gathering hall, named The Volkshalle, linked by a grand boulevard via a 100-metre-tall Triumphal Arch, the largest ever to be proposed.

Denizens of Washington might find this historical account eerily familiar. US president Donald Trump proposed erecting a 76-metre triumphal arch that straddles the capital’s Potomac River last year. But there’s more: a new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House, the Mar-a-Lagoifying of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and even the renaming of the Kennedy Center. All appear to be visible acts of the president rebranding the US capital as an imperial power centre. It is a battle enacted through narrative, the built environment and its architectural spaces. To understand Trump’s agenda, we must understand this architectural playbook. 

The first play is disparagement and erasure. The Trump administration posits its work as a necessary act of renewing degraded places and infrastructure. This is a classic exercise that uses deprecating characterisations to justify reconstruction: the East Wing, for example, has always been seen by Trump as decrepit, while downtowns are garbage, Palestine could be a new riviera and other countries are “shitholes”. This language of sanitising cities is a common refrain among burgeoning dictators.

The second play is the construction of monuments. The spectre of the Trumpian arch will certainly not be the last effort aimed at feeding the ego of the US’s most vainglorious commander-in-chief. That it must be the largest ever, or 250ft (76 metres) tall to commemorate the 250th anniversary, only reveals the conceptual vacuity of monuments writ large. But this one feels particularly empty. 

The danger of Trump’s arch is that once built, it will be almost impossible to remove – hence its real purpose. The monument can turn insecurity into permanence, frailty into symbolism. This is architecture’s gravest flirtation – the idea of generational immortality. And so the monument works as a weapon, not a commemoration; it disguises its historical raison d’être. The dependence on historical forms and styles to allude to permanence is no accident. Its effect is to fade into the background, as if it has always been there. Taken together, the intent is to profess a false historical record and entomb an image of immutability.

The final tactic is to construct in a historically inaccurate architectural style. Much has been written about Trump’s gaudy, gold-wrapped monuments and policies; the so-called “traditional” classicism. But we should inquire as to why it is in this style. Architects such as Speer used classical architecture as means through which to channel the ideology of autocracy. With Trump, the agenda tends to be anti-modern and anti-design. 

If left unchallenged, the destruction, renaming and rebuilding of public architecture around one man’s image and tastes could reshape the national narrative. Imagine the violence, ICE detentions and occupations of this era being recast as monuments of strength and success. To resist, we must recover a democratic understanding of architecture: as a shared structure through which the public can recognise itself.

As the US celebrates its 250th anniversary, we must consider not what the nation should build but what its buildings should ask of us. Perhaps we should look less to arches or gilded rooms and more to the infrastructure of common life: the places of worship, labour halls, train stations, libraries, schools, parks and, yes, memorials where all Americans can find common ground. Such monuments have nothing to do with praising power and everything to do with enacting citizenship.

Michael Murphy is an architect, lead designer of The National Memorial for Peace & Justice and the author of ‘Our World in Ten Buildings’.

On hot summer afternoons, Mediterranean cities go quiet. The streets are emptied by heat so intense that even the shadows seem to move slowly. The climate has inspired regional traditions such as the Spanish siesta, which is as much about respite from oppressive temperatures as it is about resting.

The same logic once informed architecture too, giving buildings cooling physical features including shutters that allow in light while keeping the heat out. Today, in our glass-sealed, climate-controlled structures, it’s easy to forget that both our daily rhythms and our architecture used to work with the weather, not against it. As the effects of climate change intensify, we need to reconsider more humble forms of temperature control. Here are five shutter designs that are well worth revisiting.

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1.
‘Persiane alla genovese’, Italy
In the busy alleys of Genoa, the persiane alla genovese protect from the heat while also enhancing privacy. These shutters consist of louvred panels divided into two parts, which are opened in sequence: the bottom at dawn and the rest near dusk. The lower part is called gelosia (“jealousy” in Italian), a nod to the idea of protecting what’s inside from the gaze of the street. The shutters are painted green, making the streetscape look balanced and uniform. From inside, you can look out when either the top or bottom is open, while passersby on the exterior side see only a coherent landscape of green windows.

2.
‘Jalousies’, France
The French had a similar idea and came up with jalousie shutters. The name also comes from the word for “jealousy” but, unlike the Italian persiane, these shutters are more voyeuristic and have a greater focus on looking out without being seen. Those inside are able to peer through the gaps, with the slats deflecting any gaze from the street.

Jalousies first appeared in Marseille, where they were often painted white or in a sun-faded sage. Both were practical selections, with the white reflecting the sunlight and green hues hiding dust from the eye. By the 19th century, they appeared across Parisian façades too – more for atmosphere than climate control, but the soft light they create has become a symbol of romantic French interiors. 

3.
Bahama shutters, Caribbean
Bahama shutters, also known as Bermuda shutters, developed in response to hurricanes in tropical climates. Designed to open and close vertically as opposed to horizontally, they are hinged from the top of the window and function more like fixed canopies, casting deep shadows while allowing the aperture to remain open through downpours, their angled slats deflecting rain and helping to control light and airflow. Once made from lightweight materials such as bamboo and palm fronds, today they come in more robust materials such as aluminium or wood. 

4.
‘Muxrabija’, Malta
A timber box latticed with geometric patterns, the muxrabija was introduced to Malta during Arab rule in the ninth century. These structures, which protrude from buildings, were originally used as ventilation screens and tools to create a sense of privacy. Their dense geometric pattern reflects Islamic aesthetics and clever design, filtering sunlight and allowing those inside to observe the street without being seen. The muxrabija is typically carved from pine or cedar, while dark-green and brown colours help to blend with the shadows inside. This shutter doesn’t open or close but, in essence, forms a breathing façade that is fully integrated into the skin of the building. 

5.
Stone screen, Greece
Before louvres and hinges, there were stones. In ancient Greece, from about 800 BCE to the Hellenistic period, there were either no windows or aperures were sealed with semi transluscent materials, such as thinly cut marble. The marble wasn’t adjustable but would let in light while blocking wind, dust or rain. 

Today, we have replaced many traditional shutters with plastic shells and loud motors – but could we learn something from the simplicity of this ancient design? Perhaps there is an opportunity to revive the idea of slow, seasonal architecture with shutters that are put up as the climate demands and are made from materials that speak to the locale in which they are found.