It’s easy to assume that Italy’s design world is made up of Milan – and Milan alone. The city is home to the likes of Dimore Studio, as well as shiny showrooms for big-hitter brands from Cassina to B&B Italia. It’s also where the buzz around Salone del Mobile (and its accompanying Milan Design Week) seems to dwarf everything else. I know because I’ve spent years reporting on it. 
 
But breaking out of the must-visit itineraries and the trade-show circuit can be a good thing, as proved by a visit to the recently concluded Lake Como Design Festival. Now on its eighth edition, the event has highlighted talent and showcased what makes Como a special setting for design. Because, let’s face it, setting is important.

As you stomp around fairs where commercial deals are thrashed out under artificial lighting, you can forget that design is a celebration of beauty, function and craft. Just look at the success of the Alcova platform in Milan, which often sets its exhibitions inside intriguing, underused or semi-abandoned buildings that tell a story about the city’s past (and, for that matter, its present).
 
The Lake Como festival – which is, as its name suggests, a celebration of design rather than a B2B event – is also a reminder that there is much more to the city than its lidos and the amphibious tourist planes. One of the aces up the festival’s sleeve is its regular venue, the 15th-century Villa del Grumello. Alongside the sparkling light reflected from the lake that floods its rooms, the villa also has something particular to lakeside properties: a darsena, a cavernous cellar where water flows under the villa for boats to dock, protected from the elements. This year, Luciano Baldessari’s 1929 Luminator Barcellona – a twisting floor light designed for the Barcelona International Exposition to mimic the form of a dancer on stage – was displayed under moody red lighting with a balletic effect. It’s not something that could be achieved in a showroom or an airless trade-show setting.
 
Perhaps the most memorable segment of the festival relied on its surroundings. Arranged along a path inside the villa’s gardens – with more views of the lake poking through the trees – was an exhibition titled In Nature: Stories of Those Who Have Chosen Another Life. The work of journalist Paola Manfredi and photographer Selene Magnolia Gatti, which captured this year’s theme of the “Confine” (Border), was displayed at intervals as six large portraits. Accompanying texts explained the people in the photos, whose rural alpine lives are closely linked to nature. Was this strictly design? I’m not sure. Was it enhanced by the setting? Absolutely. 
 
The design press can often get caught up on the latest chair, colourway or business deal but sometimes we forget to look around. Great design needs context, even if it might still be somewhat removed from our own daily lives (sadly I’m yet to acquire a lakeside pile or an Alcova-style former factory). Lake Como Design Festival is a reminder that our surroundings have the power to shape how we feel. If nothing else, it’s nice to get out of the trade halls and visit the lake on a balmy autumn day. 
 
Ed Stocker is Monocle’s Milan-based Europe editor at large. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Since acquiring Agnona in 2020, Stefano Aimone – the label’s CEO, creative director and sole owner – has doubled down on the luxury Italian brand’s heritage and textile expertise. He has also solidified its presence in Milan with a flagship on Via Santo Spirito and headquarters on Via Archimede. This season, Aimone presented his latest womenswear and menswear collections, which feature double-faced cashmere coats, wraparound shirts and silk sets. Here he discusses why beauty should be a part of everyday life and resisting distribution for distribution’s sake.

How do you balance being both creative director and CEO?
The positions enrich each other. There are moments when you have to change your way of thinking very quickly. One conversation can be about a fabric, technique or the proportions of a coat. The next can be about retail or the future of the business. But for me, they are not separate worlds. As creative director, I am thinking about what Agnona should represent and as CEO, I have the responsibility to make sure that this vision has longevity.

It also means that there are fewer layers between an idea and its execution. I can ask: “Does this feel right for Agnona? Does it make sense for our customer? Is it something that we will still believe in five or 10 years from now?” If the answer is yes, we can act on it. I think that creativity becomes stronger when you understand the reality around it, that business becomes more interesting when it is guided by a very clear creative point of view. The balance between commerce and creativity is delicate and continuously in flux.

Where do you see the opportunities today for an independent brand such as Agnona?
Independence gives us the freedom to be very precise about who we are and today that is incredibly valuable. Since acquiring Agnona, I have felt that we are in quite a rare position. There’s something almost embryonic about it: the possibility to shape a house with the curiosity, energy and freedom of something new but within a shell that has been refined for more than 70 years. We are not starting from zero. We are starting with extraordinary knowledge, history and material expertise. In a way, Agnona feels both young and mature at the same time, which gives us enormous creative freedom.

It’s not about becoming bigger for the sake of being bigger. It’s about becoming stronger and more distinctive. We can make decisions based on what feels right; invest in extraordinary materials, craft and innovation; and remain very close to the people who make and wear our clothes. We can choose quality over volume and longevity over immediacy. We don’t need to shout to reach the right people. Luxury is about being personal, discovering something exceptional, understanding how and why it was made and wanting to live with it for many years.

Agnona was founded in 1953, so I am very conscious of what we have inherited – but also of what we have left behind. Our responsibility is not simply to preserve that heritage but to keep it alive, question it, experiment with it and allow it to evolve. For me, that is perhaps the greatest opportunity of being independent – to have the freedom of a new beginning without losing the wisdom of age.

Which markets are the most interesting at the moment? Do you see more opportunities in a direct-to-consumer approach or through department stores and wholesale partners?
For us, it’s less about pursuing markets simply because they’re large than identifying places where there is a genuine understanding of Agnona, of material, craftsmanship and seasonality.

Italy is naturally very important to us and opening our new flagship in Milan this year was a significant moment. Milan is our home, so it was important to create a space where people could enter the world of Agnona to experience the materials, the architecture and the collection together in one environment. The shop is a physical expression of the house, of where we are going, with links to art, culture and authenticity.

Gstaad is the next important step for us. Agnona has a natural relationship with its landscape, climate, international community and, of course, its appreciation of exceptional cashmere and pieces that are luxurious but designed to be lived in. I’m interested in opening shops and working with teams that Agnona feels culturally and emotionally at home in, rather than simply accumulating addresses.

South Korea is also a strong market for us. It’s home to an extremely sophisticated customer base with a deep appreciation for quality, fabrication and design – and the subtleties of what we do. Agnona has its own presence in Seoul alongside some very strong retail partners.

In the UK, Harrods is a very special partner for us. Agnona’s concession gives us a home from home in London, now within the newly developed first-floor womenswear environment. Harrods provides exceptional care to its international and domestic customers, which makes it an important expression and custodian of the brand in the UK.

I am less interested in defining the business as direct-to-consumer or wholesale than in thinking about the quality of Agnona’s presence. The two models are different expressions of the same ecosystem and I think a healthy brand needs both intimacy and discovery. Our own shops allow us to build the world of Agnona with absolute clarity but there is also real value in customers encountering us within a highly considered, multi-brand environment. Department stores place the house in a broader cultural and commercial conversation and, with the right partner, can bring relevance and perspective that you can’t replicate on your own.

It’s important today to resist distribution for distribution’s sake. Where it is present, how it is presented and what surrounds it all contribute to the perception of a house. In that sense, distribution is also a creative decision. For Agnona, the ambition is therefore not ubiquity but relevance: a considered network of our own spaces and exceptional partners, each contributing something different to the way that customers discover and experience the house.

What was your ambition for the latest collection?
I wanted the collection to have a feeling of movement. We called it “Coast to Coast” but the journey is not only about travelling from one geographical point to another. It’s about how the motion and process of travel change your state of mind.

It begins in the city and gradually becomes more relaxed as you move through the countryside and towards the sea. The wardrobe changes with that journey, beginning with the precision of lightweight double cashmere and tailoring. Then linen, silk, perforated leather, crochet and embroidery bring more air and freedom into the clothes. It’s a journey from contained and curated to relaxed and reflective.

My ambition was to create a complete summer wardrobe that could move with a person rather than dictate how they should live. There is sophistication but also a sense of ease. For me, successful design and relevant luxury garments should give you that freedom.

How would you describe Italian sensibility in fashion?
I think that there is an Italian instinct for bringing beauty into everyday life. It’s not necessarily about formality or decoration. It can be the proportions of a jacket, the feel of a fabric, the way that someone sets a table or the particular light in a room. A joy in creating and sharing beauty in an everyday environment.

There’s also a strong relationship between the hand and the eye in Italy. We have generations of knowledge about textiles, tailoring, leather and manufacturing but I’m interested in when knowledge doesn’t become nostalgic. Craft has to remain alive, which is why I knew that it would be important to build the atelier, archive and rooftop greenhouse as part of the new Agnona HQ – a trifecta to create, grow and learn.

Agnona respects extraordinary materials and techniques but we don’t want them to feel precious in a way that makes them untouchable. You should wear the cashmere, travel in it, live in it. Perhaps this approach is quite Italian too: beauty should be part of life.
agnona.com

With multilateralism seemingly in retreat, a hostile US administration, major powers waging unilateral wars and a sharp budget cut, the position of UN secretary-general is surely one of the world’s toughest jobs right now. Who would want to fill the shoes of António Guterres, whose second five-year term ends in December? 

Lining up for consideration are eight people with impressive CVs, from the current head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to a former president of Senegal. Their job, should they succeed Guterres, will be to overhaul the entire institution, which has long been haemorrhaging trust among both its member states and the public. The candidates’ statements all cite a pressing need to inject new life into the UN, increase transparency and return the body to its core mandate of preventing conflict. 

Senior UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis of Costa Rica, an early frontrunner, says that the organisation is “too distant from the daily needs of people”. Ecuadoran diplomat Ivonne A-Baki calls it “slow, fragmented and expensive”. Macky Sall, the former president of Senegal, has accused the UN Security Council of being “the last vestige of a bygone world order”. 

The opaque selection process involves a series of secret ballots held by the 15-member Security Council. The five permanent members (P5) – the UK, France, the US, Russia and China – wield a veto. As a result, while candidates have identified the problem, a strident reformer is unlikely to emerge as the victor.  

Secret straw polls began on 30 July, in which the P5 members and the 10 non-permanent members cast ballots. The candidates have no idea which country gave which ballot and must figure out who to target with renewed lobbying. With its intricacies and potential for Machiavellian power plays, the process has been compared to a papal conclave. 

So far, three rounds have taken place, with Grynspan Mayufis and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Guyana’s permanent representative to the UN, in the lead – though some insist that these early ballots are part of the negotiating process, rather than a true indication of candidates’ prospects. Another round is expected to take place soon. If a frontrunner emerges, a further round of polling will take place, in which the P5 will use different coloured ballot papers. A “discourage” vote from one of them means that they could face a veto. And once a candidate has the support of at least nine Security Council members without a veto from a P5 member, they will face a full vote at the 193-member General Assembly, which is expected to back the Security Council’s recommendation.

Conventional wisdom holds that a candidate from South America will prevail, given that only one of the nine secretary-generals to date have come from the region. There are also five female candidates and many have argued that it’s time for a woman to take the helm. 

Much of the lobbying by candidates this year has been targeted at the US, given Donald Trump’s open hostility to the UN, the country’s withdrawal from 31 of its affiliated organisations and the president’s threats to its funding. “It’s symbolically, financially and politically vital to have the trust and the backing of the United States,” says secretary-general candidate and former Ecuadorean defence and foreign affairs minister María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés. 

Another potential pitfall lies ahead. In theory, a successor from the current crop should be chosen by December. However, any member state can throw a spanner in the works by nominating a new candidate at any point in the process and speculation has been rife that Trump might try to foist the head of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, into the role. While this seems unlikely given Infantino’s recent troubles after trying to sell off rights to the World Cup, the US president is a known disruptor on the international stage. And because of the way that the selection process is designed, with huge power given to the P5 members, it’s more than likely that we’ll see some drama before any white smoke.

Tokyo, early Monday morning, I was flipping between Japan’s news shows. Typhoon Dujuan dominated all the networks and there was so much happening on-screen that you’d be forgiven for thinking that the feed into the hotel’s cable system had somehow merged a gameshow and an air traffic control screen, with a side helping of mid-80s TV home shopping. Japan’s morning news shows have little to do with the sofas and news desks of the Australian and US versions of Today, Good Morning America or anything on the UK’s breakfast telly buffet. Rather than the industry-standard double anchor plus newsreader and weather sidekick, Japan’s commercial networks like their studios big and bright, their presenters young and abundant (at one point I counted seven in the studio) and their infographics delightfully analogue – cue lots of cardboard cut-outs, pointers and handmade graphics.

After flipping between three networks, I got the general idea that the typhoon wasn’t going to hit Tokyo directly but that things would be rather wet and blustery at about 17.00. I was about to head out for a lap of the Imperial Palace when TV Asahi cut away from the studio to some thrashing palm trees on an island south of Tokyo. As the camera swung around between the rooftops, crashing waves and bendy palms, a young correspondent (21 years old? 23 max) wearing a white safety helmet with a chin strap and technical rain gear filled the screen and relayed what was happening. A few moments later we were on another island and an equally young female reporter was teetering in the gusts, drenched, drawing attention to a sad-looking swimming pool that looked like it had been abandoned about 20 typhoons ago. Next it was back to the mainland for a series of live hits and, no matter the location, there wasn’t a single person north of thirty clutching a microphone and delivering commentary about the angry typhoon.

Was this unique to TV Asahi? I quickly flipped through the other channels and, sure enough, potentially dangerous weather assignments belonged to battalions of cub reporters. While CNN, the BBC and so many others leave the dramatic stories to their most seasoned correspondents, this isn’t so in Japan, where a significant weather event required reporters and crews to get into position a day or two earlier, waiting (hoping) for the winds to whip up and for tiles and wall panels to start flying. I ended up sticking with the coverage longer than planned, before getting completely side-tracked by an amazing advert for a new premium service from Japan Rail (more on that from our Tokyo team later in the week) but eventually I made it down to street level and trotted around the park. As I passed the Tokyo FM building, I thought about all the young reporters out covering their stories and wondered what happened to the ranks of news cadets and cub reporters in Western media organisations. Have they disappeared for health and safety reasons? Is it wholly inappropriate to use the word “cub” in relation to a young journalist? Have legal departments deemed it a mental-health liability trap to send the potentially vulnerable and inexperienced out to do the job that they applied for?

On Friday I had lunch in Hong Kong with my former boss from the US network, ABC. We hadn’t seen each other for 36 years and, over bites at Grissini at the Grand Hyatt, we took an all-too-brief tour down memory lane, touching on the opportunities that we were offered and the risks that we took in the world of network TV news circa the 1990s. ABC didn’t call its news juniors cub reporters but its bureau on London’s Carburton Street certainly felt like a special, well-financed finishing school for young journalists. Thank you, Lisa, for giving me a shot all those years ago – even if I didn’t get a white helmet with a chin strap.

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

The legend surrounding the Monte-Carlo Beach hotel is second to none: stories of Marlene Dietrich spending her holidays here shortly after its opening in the 1920s, or late Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld shooting campaigns with Helmut Newton on its premises, have kept the hotel’s myth alive. The moment you enter the sleek white lobby, you are met with a sense of gravitas that inspires you to carry yourself differently and indulge in the pleasures of the Riviera. 

But the hotel, now operated by the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer, doesn’t rely on history to maintain its cultural relevance. In recent years, it has brought together some of the most exciting names from the worlds of architecture, food and fashion to help reimagine what a contemporary luxury institution should look like. Architect and designer India Mahdavi refreshed the interiors in 2024 (you can find her signature touches everywhere, from the striking terracotta balconies to the rattan chairs at the restaurant Le Deck), while Provençal designer Simon Porte Jacquemus has been dressing the sunloungers on the institution’s famous beach pier in his iconic, charming stripes.

The hotel is also a year-round culinary destination with options that range from crepe stands on the beach during the sunnier months to Greek-inspired meze at restaurant Maona Monte-Carlo and wholesome, classic dishes at Le Deck, which can be enjoyed while taking in views of the hotel’s Olympic-sized pool. La Vigie Zanoni Monte-Carlo is one of the most exciting new arrivals: chef Simone Zanoni has taken over the hotel’s crown jewel, perched on a private peninsula that overlooks the Mediterranean. Right above is Villa La Vigie, a private home that once belonged to the late Lagerfeld and is now available for guests to book. 

The short walk to the restaurant, through a narrow pathway framed by pine trees, immediately sets the mood. “La Vigie has something very special. It’s elegant but relaxed at the same time – people come here to enjoy life. That’s exactly the kind of place where I love to cook,” says Zanoni, who is also behind Le George in Paris and La Mamounia in Marrakesh. 

For the chef, the menu at La Vigie is all about melding elements from French cuisine with his own Italian roots, focusing on fresh fish, colourful vegetables and hearty dishes – the seafood paccheri and the risotto come highly recommended. “For me, it’s very simple: you need great olive oil, beautiful tomatoes, fresh basil, lemons, seasonal vegetables, fresh fish and, of course, good pasta,” he adds. “When the ingredients are exceptional, you don’t need to complicate things.”

Zanoni recommends starting with a spritz before moving to a chilled wine (a white or a light rosé pairs perfectly). And don’t shy away from sharing plates, especially the figliata – a giant mozzarella that makes for the perfect starter – or the fior di latte gelato for dessert. 
montecarlosbm.com

Now I’m not sure what happens where you reside but in London it’s still deemed polite to pick up a bottle of wine when you’re invited to dinner at someone’s house. Two if you’re a fast drinker. But there’s a certain moment when to do so becomes unwise and makes you look, well, cheap. I sadly remember the first time that I made this faux pas.

I had been invited to the home of a work contact. It was a crossover moment, an invitation that hinted that perhaps we could become actual friends. On the way to dinner, I purchased a bottle of champagne (very fancy pants, I know). Her address turned out to be a grand London house and, when I pressed the bell, a butler answered the door. I immediately saw a wince of anguish spread across his face as he glanced down and eyed my off-licence carrier bag. “Sir, may I take your coat – and your, er, shopping?” he intoned in a voice that made it very clear that my booze would be going no further than the hallway. And it didn’t.

Of course, thirtysomethings today probably don’t host dinner parties or, if they do, only imbibe kombucha for fear of missing out on a personal best at Barry’s in the morning. But I still carry the scars.

This week I was invited to dinner in Mallorca at the kind of epic house that’s named after the family who lives there (sadly I don’t think you could ever have the “Tuck House” as it would sound like I was running a roadside diner). Was this a moment, I wondered, to arrive empty-handed or bottled-up? In short, might the host be too grand for gifts? 

I messaged my friend Olaf – for whom the dinner was being thrown – and he assured me that a bottle would be an acceptable offering (though I did pop a copy of Monocle into the nice tote bag too just to improve my chances of success). I am pleased to say that the hostess was the epitome of barefoot chic. She left me feeling as though I was generosity personified. I don’t mind if the wine ends up in a sauce and I didn’t get butler rash.

We were talking about dinner parties at work this week and I told what I thought was a good story about a mid-week dinner at a friend’s flat, where someone arrived with Anjelica Huston in tow. The amusing part was that my friend, the host, charmingly had no clue who she was and thought that she was just a late-addition plus-one. Except the story sank like a miserable soufflé when I realised that my desk neighbour – a man who was barely out of diapers when this happened (ie, he was very young, not blighted by terrible adult incontinence) – had a bit of butler face going on. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue who you’re talking about,” he admitted. I scanned the rest of my audience and saw much googling in action. I really need to update my stories.

Another etiquette issue: how to respond when someone posts tragic news on Instagram. Now I like my feed to be filled with pictures of architecture and reels of puppies being rescued from rivers but, occasionally, I do spot posts announcing the sad death of a parent or that someone has been diagnosed with a disfiguring tropical disease. I always find myself drawn to the reactions that these posts inspire. Firstly, the number of people who just press “like”. Is that really a suitable response to the news that your friend’s family has been kidnapped in the Amazon? Then this week, under a post about the death of someone’s dad, I saw that someone had simply put a poop emoji. No doubt there’s some stonemason influencer making emoji headstones as I type. But who are these people and do they know who Anjelica Huston is?

If you really want to know how to be a good host – or guest – get yourself a copy of Konfekt: A Guide to Generous Hosting. It has all the answers.

The normally hyper-competitive US news industry sounded like a trade union this week following the Trump administration’s decision to bar CNN, MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and Politico from the White House grounds. The two left-leaning cable news channels and the DC-insider digital news outlet “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES”, wrote the president on his social-media platform. Even if some reporters were allowed to re-enter the White House yesterday, the debacle should spark a renewed confidence in traditional news gathering.

No specific recent incident sparked the eviction and in response the US’s five major TV news networks – ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox – collectively agreed to suspend pool coverage of White House events. When I tuned into National Public Radio’s coverage of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, anchor Mary Louise Kelly pointedly told listeners that they would not hear Trump’s remarks “in solidarity with our fellow journalists”.

While rivals standing shoulder to shoulder might seem surprising – especially conservative outlet Fox News’ decision not to cross the picket line – a precedent had been set in 2009. During the financial crisis, the Obama administration sought to exclude Fox from interviews with the White House official who was overseeing the bailout programme. ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC closed ranks and declined to air those segments until Fox was allowed around the microphone.

Back then social media was in its infancy. Today the White House believes that it can shrug off a boycott. On Monday, Trump TV debuted on YouTube with round-the-clock coverage of Oval Office comings and goings. (As of Wednesday, viewership had peaked at about 8,500 – a figure just a few zeros shy of the millions who tune in to cable news networks every day.)

It might be tempting to write off the major TV networks, legacy daily newspapers and nationally syndicated radio stations amid a nimbler media landscape of streamers and their ilk. But this would ignore a vast infrastructure of studios, bureaux, broadcast booths, cameras, audio equipment and the people who run it all – from smart on-air anchors and bold-faced columnists to behind-the-scenes technicians and shift workers at printing presses. These professionals provide the raw material for the online commentariat and podcast hosts.

While a handful of the so-called “new media” landed coveted White House press credentials last year, livestreaming from the briefing room with a jury-rigged smartphone is still a far cry from on-the-ground reportage or the foresight from global correspondent networks. And when the presidential debates roll around in two years’ time, I guarantee that tens of millions of Americans will be tuning in to a legacy network, not Real America’s Voice or The Young Turks.

In a hotel last week, I channel-surfed between CNN and Fox. The former was fixated on a Russian oligarch who bankrolled Donald Trump Jr’s wedding in the Bahamas as symptomatic of the administration’s corruption. The latter trumpeted a federal fraud investigation into a Los Angeles housing scheme to pound Gavin Newsom’s record ahead of his expected presidential bid.

Did the breathless coverage of the other side’s foibles, with guests often speaking from their home offices rather than the studio, endear me to the on-screen reporting? Not particularly. But I found myself doing some further reading. Both stories were factual and I hadn’t come across either in my daily newspaper. As it happens, I went to sleep a more informed citizen.

Gregory Scruggs is Monocle’s Seattle correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

China’s high-tech supercity, Shenzhen, is experiencing a different type of boom: museums. The Shenzhen International Art Museum opened in May, accompanying the launch of two other state-funded institutions that cover everything from design to dinosaurs. The city’s trio of big-name openings is drawing in day-trippers from nearby Hong Kong and there’s more to come. If this cultural shift takes root, it could change perceptions of China’s Silicon Valley, which is often labelled as a city without a soul.

During the megacity’s short life so far, it has largely been a place that people have come to to get something: a factory job, a knock-off gadget or garment, a cheap manicure, a massage or a cut-price dinner. Until now, there was nothing to see and no one in the city – not even the founders of its famous tech giants, Tencent, BYD and Huawei – was actually from Shenzhen.

These companies have created giant fortunes over the past three decades, transforming the skylines of Futian and Nanshan. Their lasting influence extends to the legions of immigrant workers from across China, who have put down roots and started families. A new generation of natives, with different demands and expectations to those of their parents, is now entering a notoriously diligent workforce. Shenzhen is more of a workplace than a place to live, with drones, robots and other whizzy, AI-enabled gadgets forming part of the city’s work-orientated rhythm.

The Róng Museum of Art, which opens next year, is one of the most anticipated additions to Shenzhen’s cultural landscape. The private arts institution is backed by Tencent founder Pony Ma and will form part of the M80 complex designed by Ole Scheeren – a nod to the year when Shenzhen became mainland China’s first special economic zone. 

Founding director and first employee, Pi Li, has spent the past 12 years working at major Hong Kong arts institutions M+ and Tai Kwun. The Wuhan native spoke to Monocle about Shenzhen’s cultural vision and how the city managed to lure him back to the mainland.  

It feels like Shenzhen is having a museum moment.
It doesn’t happen overnight. The government has made these kinds of cultural facilities a condition for development over the past 10 or 15 years. The Shenzhen City Planning Bureau is very ambitious. It wants the city to become an exhibition space for the best Chinese and international architects. 

What is the relationship between Shenzhen and Hong Kong?
Shenzhen’s development is attached to Hong Kong. The most built-up places in Shenzhen are all close to the border. For many years, when young artists travelled around the world, they’d joke that when they said they were from Shenzhen, they’d always need to add an extra phrase – the city next to Hong Kong. But nowadays they don’t need to explain that as much. 

Has Shenzhen built its own culture? 
There’s a very popular term right now: shen er dai (“the second generation of Shenzhen”). Some of our staff who were born after the 1980s now refer to themselves as shen er dai. They were born to parents from other places but grew up in Shenzhen. The average age in the city is 32 or 33, compared to 47 or 48 in Hong Kong. Plus, 80 per cent of Shenzhen’s population is of working age, which is double the number in Hong Kong.

How does this affect your role as museum director?
We are located in a place called Houhai, which means “the back of the sea”. Walk down the high street before 14.00 and you will see no one on the pavement – everyone is at work. That’s a major challenge for us. Every museum needs an audience, so we are thinking very carefully about the right opening hours. Do we stick with a traditional 10.00 to 18.00 schedule or do we do 12.00 to 20.00 – or even midday to 22.00?

What tempted you to return to mainland China?
People are not afraid of the new. Even with all of the limitations, they want to make things happen in all kinds of ways. That energy is very important today, especially when you’re creating a cultural institution. I always call Shenzhen a twin city of Hong Kong but there’s a different vibe across the bridge that makes me feel as though I can do something different. Shenzhen might be the city next to Hong Kong but it won’t repeat its neighbour’s story.

How would you introduce the museum?
It’s a museum that focuses on 21st-century visual arts, performing arts and digital culture. The word róng has many meanings: merge, combine, harmony. In our case, we want to be an open platform where people can coexist and learn from each other. We plan to introduce international culture and creativity to Shenzhen, while also presenting local works that help audiences to understand the city’s cultural history in a global context, from being the world’s factory of shanzhai copy culture to open-source AI models. 

Do you have a permanent collection?
Not yet. We will start collecting in the future but we want to focus on our programme and doing something different to the past. The first generation of private museums in the 1990s was supported by real-estate companies that wanted to convince people to purchase property in Shenzhen. The second generation was initiated by big collectors who wanted to open a space to share their collections with the public. Ours should be a part of the institution’s memory and not for the sake of collection.

What’s Shenzhen’s audience like compared to China’s other tier-one cities? 
Beijing is a city of culture, where people worship artists and writers who they know by name. Hong Kong is a city of highly educated and well-travelled people who like to see the arrival of big international stars and who follow an authoritative voice. And Shanghai is somewhere in between. But people from Shenzhen tend to focus on what they feel and what they see. Big names won’t influence their decision to see a show, unless it’s Murakami or Nara. That curiosity allows us to try many interesting things.

There are many people who will tell you that being cool just doesn’t matter. That, while style might be a nice add-on, it’s really not something that you should be spending too much time thinking about. That appearances are fundamentally irrelevant.

But they are wrong. How things look and making places that are cool can be a positive, potent driver in everything from economics to architecture and urbanism. One place that seems to have cottoned on to this is New Zealand’s largest city.

Poor old Auckland has been the target of some rather waspish comments over the years. Travel writer Paul Theroux described arriving in the city a few decades ago as like “touching down on a distant star”. When former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew came to town in the 1990s, he’s said to have described Auckland as “shut”. Now, I’m sure that many Kiwis were indifferent to these arrows and the city was happy to be the urban equivalent of a dad in flares but other residents understood the damage that this inflicted – including a brain drain that saw numerous people leaving to find fun and opportunities in Sydney, London and Los Angeles. Change was needed and, over the past 20 years, the city has been rebuilt, with its post-industrial waterfront taken back for public use. As we go to press, it’s also preparing to open the largest infrastructure project in the country’s history.

The City Rail Link is New Zealand’s first underground metro system and comes with a series of beautiful stations that have been attracting thousands of visitors on special preview days. Its imminent unveiling was a good cue for us to send reporter Gordon Peake to assess how the city got its new look and how being a bit cooler is changing perceptions.

The often-surprising impact of beauty in the things that we build and make is a recurring idea in this issue. It certainly runs through a wonderful interview by Grace Charlton with Lebanon-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh.

I first met Ghotmeh when she participated in our Quality of Life Conference in the French capital in 2022. I was transfixed by her ability to rise above the fray to talk about what architecture can do for people and countries; coming from a nation scarred by wars and infighting had clearly given her both clarity of thought and a determination to deliver change. It’s a mindset that has resulted in Ghotmeh winning competitions to design everything from a perfect factory (for Hermès) to national exhibition pavilions (for Bahrain at Expo 2025 in Osaka). Now, she’s redesigning the Western Range galleries of the British Museum in London that house objects from ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome.

Reading her interview, you will immediately sense her ability to harness design to deliver so much more than just an efficient exhibition space. “How do we allow a piece of architecture to become a place that builds our knowledge, that allows you to experience the work better but also to open up to dialogue?” she asks. “The museum is not a static place that just showcases objects from the past. It’s also a contemporary place that has to allow for debate and learning from our ancestors.” It’s designed as a Trojan horse to deliver big ideas that will stay with visitors forever.

Debate and learning have been common threads in Monocle since our launch in 2007 – the first issue went on sale on 14 February that year. Over the coming months, in the run-up to our 20th-anniversary celebrations, we will be putting the spotlight on some of our own history.

This month’s Expo pages document what has become a key part of our brand: our annual Quality of Life Conference, which this year unfolded in Lisbon. The event is the magazine brought to life; a display of all the topics that we care about but also a moment when we are able to underline some bigger ideas – that listening is good, that we can find some of the best answers in fields beyond our own. And that, yes, being cool can be a good thing.

If you would like to send me ideas, thoughts or style tips, I can always be found at [email protected]

Reference books, mood boards and small-scale models of buildings cover almost every inch of Lina Ghotmeh’s studio in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. The eclecticism on display reflects the Lebanese-born architect’s wide-ranging portfolio, which spans countries and typologies, from museums in Uzbekistan and Estonia to the Stone Garden residential tower in Beirut. Since founding her namesake practice in 2016, she has been celebrated for her culturally sensitive work.

It’s an approach that has won her prestigious commissions, such as London’s annual Serpentine Pavilion and a Hermès Workshop in Normandy (both of which were completed in 2023). On the horizon are two works that will cement Ghotmeh’s standing as one of the world’s most important contemporary architects: the new Western Range gallery at London’s British Museum and Qatar’s national pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale in Venice. The latter is the first permanent pavilion to be added to the gardens in 30 years and also the first to be designed by a woman. We sat down with Ghotmeh in the French capital to discuss the poetics of architecture, museums as spaces for dialogue and her advice for the next generation of designers.

You grew up in Beirut, where, as a child, you dreamt of becoming an archaeologist before turning your attention to architecture. How does your upbringing in a city that’s said to have been rebuilt seven times influence your work?
I was born there and lived in Lebanon until I moved to Paris at the age of 22. Growing up in a place like that teaches you about the meaning of architecture. In a war-torn city, building is an act of healing. It brings people together. It’s also about dealing with the scars of the past. The act becomes particularly meaningful – and this applies beyond the context of Beirut or Lebanon.

Beirut is a place that teaches you the importance of diversity and cultural richness because many people from different backgrounds and beliefs live there. There is a depth of history that gives you the capacity to deal with complexity and to embrace it as part of being human. That’s something that I cherish and apply in my architecture. It’s about understanding that life isn’t simple and trying to create projects that are a synthesis.

I have always been interested in archaeology. Beirut is like an open site. I think of architecture as a form of archaeology because you’re revealing what already exists, transforming it and giving it to the future. This links to ideas about the Earth and the environment. It involves amplifying the present reality and allowing it to ripple into what comes next, as well as how you connect to a place and what it gives you. It’s about trying to be innovative, original or unique too – but rooted in a location. When something is both anchored and has a sense of novelty, it’ll be able to withstand time.

In your studio, there are mood boards, models and reference books everywhere. Research is evidently intrinsic to your practice. When you receive a new commission, where do you start?
A love of culture and diversity is part of my upbringing, nourished by my travels and projects, as well as the opportunities that emerge along the way. I always listen to a place, rather than imposing a way of doing things. Of course, the process of thinking about a place creates a certain poetics of architecture. Building emerges from empathy. The research process starts with those questions: where are we building? What’s the culture? What’s the history? This interest and care for others helps us to understand these issues.

When I’m working in Japan, for example, I try to understand the local customs, materials and resources. I’m very sensitive to beauty, to the way that things are put together, to craft. Projects start to echo their environment. There’s no single starting point and there are multiple questions. I advocate for a design process that isn’t linear. I’m currently working on a nature observatory in Toyama. I began by asking myself, “What is an observatory?” In Japan, observatories look like temples; they emerge vertically. In this case, the resource is wood and the context is nature. To materialise these ideas, I’m constantly sketching. A building then starts to become material.

Finally, architecture is linked to how we live. It should embrace people and bring extraordinary beauty in various ways. Everything emerges from this relationship to living and using architecture as a way of encountering, of fostering togetherness and of bettering our lives.

You recently won the competition to redesign the Western Range galleries of the British Museum in London. These house objects from ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome. How have you decided to approach this commission?
It’s a fantastic project because the collection of the Western Range represents a big part of our world. A key question is, “How can architecture be a vessel that helps to amplify the collection?” We also need to allow for relevance, the need to bring a contemporary aspect. Think of the mausoleum of Halicarnassus in Bodrum [a tomb adorned with sculptural reliefs, built around 350 BCE] or other major objects of that kind. At the time they were produced, they were contemporary. And they still have that resonance.

So how do we allow a piece of architecture to become a place that builds our knowledge, that allows people to experience the work better – but also to open up to dialogue? The museum is not a static place that just showcases objects from the past. It’s also a contemporary place that has to allow for debate and learning from our ancestors.

I love to work on museums because of the cultural realms that they open up. For example, the Estonian National Museum in Tartu is connected to an ex-Soviet military airfield. I learnt about the country’s history, objects related to its Finno-Ugric culture and how these were collected during different occupations. A museum is an incubator of culture, where cinema and books are produced, where conservation takes place.

At the moment, we’re working on the Jadids’ Legacy Museum in Uzbekistan, which is an existing house that we are transforming. Through the heritage of the building, we’re learning about the history of the Jadid movement in the country and the richness of Bukhara. A museum is fascinating as a typology. Its role is to bring us closer to our humanity, which is especially important because of the growth of artificial intelligence and the digital world. How do we establish places of dialogue, debate and critical thinking at a time of so much polarisation?

You have also worked on temporary pavilions, including the Serpentine Pavilion in London and the Bahrain Pavilion at the 2025 Expo in Osaka. What is it like to build with ephemerality in mind?
You can experiment more in terms of shapes and forms. The temporary nature of a pavilion means that you have to build with a light carbon footprint. I love the idea of something light that barely sits in its place. The Serpentine Pavilion felt like a spider or a floating leaf. In Osaka, our pavilion had a sense of movement, like a boat. You entered this big hall, with stretched fabric backlit like a washi lantern. Though the canvas is sturdy, in architecture, there are ways to experiment with lightness through ephemeral materials that bring a sense of fragility.

You also won a competition to design Qatar’s permanent pavilion in Venice’s Giardini della Biennale. This is the first time in 30 years that a new pavilion has been added to the gardens and the first time that a woman has been its architect. What can you tell us about this project?
It’s a permanent pavilion representing Qatar, built with stone. It’s important to have an Arab voice in the Giardini at this moment; we need to have a diversity of voices. All of these layers of meaning are fantastic and the pavilion is positioned as a stage to allow people to gather and convene. It’s a generous space where you can meet inside but also on the roof of the structure. A pavilion in the Giardini is a unique place where architecture and art coexist to reflect our times. For Qatar, it’s about its history and how it emerged on water, while Venice also sits on water.

You’re Lebanese and based in Paris but working internationally, representing Bahrain and Qatar with national pavilions. How do you meld these different international identities in your practice?
Boundaries are what humans impose. What is nationality? I’m more interested in how people are enriched by porosity. It’s scientifically known that the more we mix and cross-pollinate, the more we advance. It’s essential to our humanity to have this openness and allow for a relational approach in architecture. There’s a need for relationships between different places. Architecture is a wonderful field because it allows you to speak those different languages through one language: space. When we think about culture, it’s always linked to geography. Mediterranean people are similar to one another. Maybe if you’re an island person, you have similar traits to someone else living on an island. If we’re different from one another or have enriching specificities, they’re linked to our geographies and to our climate – not the lines that we draw on maps.

For me, being based in Paris matters and doesn’t matter at the same time. I love the city and its history, its elegance. There’s an attachment to heritage, to human values. I grew up in Lebanon, which was a French mandate, so I feel this relationship too – but I’m always critical. All of this relates to how you embody the place where you work. At the same time, as I’m working everywhere, I feel like I belong to Japan, to Qatar.

You’ve given lectures at Yale and the University of Toronto, and you were appointed the Kenzo Tange professor at Harvard. What advice do you have for the next generation of architects?
The challenge is how to build knowledge. With AI, for instance, you might have a question and it has only one answer for you – but the world doesn’t have one answer. There are many different ways to answer a question and to sit with the multiplicity. It requires creativity and opening your mind to different perspectives that allow you to work with contradiction. I’m not against technology or AI but they’re only tools.

The second challenge is patience. Architecture needs a lot of it. While AI can give you instant answers, building something takes time. Even if we have developments in robotics or 3D printing, it still takes time to build. How do you deal with this when everything moves so fast? How can younger generations keep that patience? There’s no immediate gratification but you have to dream. You need to be grounded but remain an eternal optimist, despite being aware of the challenges of your time.