The Monocle Minute

Today Lisbon’s Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology opens to the public with a comprehensive 12-hour programme to mark the occasion. The new museum, built on the site of the former Tejo Power Station, was funded by the EDP Foundation and designed by Amanda Levete’s architecture firm ALA with the goal of regenerating and reconnecting the city’s riverfront Belém district. “An idea that drove our thinking was the increasing need in modern life for places where people can congregate so we designed the building in such a way as to create new public space as well as gallery space,” Levete told the press. Led by Pedro Gadanho, the former curator of contemporary architecture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the establishment will merge art, architecture and technology, while supporting Portuguese talent. The opening week will see works by artists such as Ryoji Ikeda and Haroon Mirza fill the galleries of the new Kunsthalle – whose tiles echo the country’s traditional ceramic culture – followed by the large group exhibition Utopia/Dystopia part II, which will open in March next year.

Busan International Film Festival (Biff) begins tomorrow and all eyes are on new chairman Kim Dong-ho. The respected 79-year-old South Korean director is making a comeback to head up the crisis-stricken event he co-founded two decades ago. Biff is mired in controversy after authorities tried to stop the screening of a documentary that criticises the government’s handling of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. Since then an off-screen slugfest between organisers and officials has seen the festival’s budget halved, a financial investigation launched and several prominent resignations on both sides. Ongoing concerns about artistic independence have prompted film-makers to talk of a boycott but a happy ending to this drama with Kim as its hero is surely in Busan’s best interests – especially given that earlier this year the South Korean government inked a deal to build one of Asia’s biggest film studios in the southern coastal city.

When Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party announced that it would boost funding for the country’s national broadcaster CBC, the country rejoiced. But recently the focus has shifted from TV to the country’s struggling print-news industry. Last week Rogers, Canada’s largest publishing company, announced sweeping changes to its print output. From January next year many of its print titles will be exclusively available online and others – including Canada’s sole weekly news magazine MacLeans – will only hit newsstands once a month. Additionally, 34 of its trade publications are being put up for sale. “We are going where our audiences are,” says Rick Brace, president of Rogers Media – and those audiences are increasingly leaving print behind. An ongoing government enquiry into the state of the nation’s newspaper industry highlighted major job losses at big papers, with some suggesting that the government should step in to shore up print titles that are struggling, which subsequently raised questions about the freedom of the press. It remains to be seen what the future holds.

The suggestion that money is ruining football is nothing new. Agents are picking up eight-figure fees, the biggest clubs are vacuuming up all the best talent and the whiff of corruption is never far from Fifa, the sport’s international governing body. However, what is new is the number of ways in which money is ruining football – and Fifa’s new boss has another ingenious suggestion. Gianni Infantino, the man brought in to clean up after the resignation of Sepp Blatter, has floated the idea of increasing the number of teams at the World Cup, held every four years, from 32 to 48. More teams means more money for sponsors and for Fifa. It won’t make the tournament any better though – quite the opposite, in fact. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to matter too much to Infantino.

The instruments used to make electronic music are rarely things of beauty but Melbourne-based company Hundo is trying to change that. The company’s co-founders (and brothers) Henry and Jack Madin are artists and musicians who have made a handsome drum pad out of Tasmanian oak. Monocle’s Adrian Craddock sits down with Henry to find out more.

Our second film report from the Venice Architecture Biennale focuses on the national pavilions’ responses to curator Alejandro Aravena’s quest for new points of view on the social, political and cultural issues facing the world of architecture today.