The Monocle Minute
On Design

This week’s dispatch is full of tall stories, from Jessica Bridger’s view of a towering success in Sydney (pictured) to a furniture brand’s showroom that’s hitting new heights in Italy. Plus: a smart serving of Danish design and the comeback of tape recorders – you heard it here first.

Italian furniture brand Porro has recently opened a new showroom in Milan. The space, which faces onto the bustling Via Visconti di Modrone and the pedestrianised Via Ronchetti, is spread across two floors, with double-height windows that offer passers-by glimpses of what’s inside. “The showroom is about immersing people in design,” says Maria Porro, the brand’s head of marketing and communication, and president of Salone del Mobile. “But it’s also a meeting point for architects, where they can develop tailor-made projects together.”

The space was designed by Porro’s art director, Piero Lissoni. Though it’s open-plan, it also has several dedicated rooms to showcase the brand’s extensive collection. For instance, in the ground-floor dining room you’ll find a Materic Ovale table in latte ash and GamFratesi-designed Voyage chairs with exposed frames in tapered maple and leather upholstery. The living room, meanwhile, features an impressive wall-mounted composition of Modern, the brand’s storage-unit system. We expect Porro’s new home in Milan to thrive as the company continues to push the boundaries of design.
porro.com

Faced with ever-rising populations, many cities are erecting increasing numbers of high-rise buildings. Sydney, however, has found a way to build upwards with flair. Its Quay Quarter Tower was named the world’s best new tall building at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s recent annual conference (see above). The “vertical village” incorporated an existing tall building in its design, with architects BVN retaining 65 per cent of the original structure. “The upcycling of Quay Quarter sets a new standard for reimagining tall buildings to sustainably develop our cities into diverse, liveable, accessible, long-lasting places,” says BVN’s principal, Matthew Blair.

The project was developed in partnership with Danish architects 3XN. The resulting tower resembles five blocks that are stacked on top of each other and features a multi-level atrium, shops, restaurants and fitness spaces. It also has good pedestrian connections at street level. The project sets a precedent for other urban centres that are in need of more space or are seeking to breathe new life into old structures.
bvn.com.au; 3xn.com

US architect Jeanne Gang is known for work that is humble and understated. Her studio’s expansive portfolio includes parks, community centres and public institutions, such as the recently completed Richard Gilder Center at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. All seek to respond to the needs of their communities. For the November issue of Monocle, we visited the architect at her studio-cum-public gallery in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighbourhood to find out more.

You recently completed work on Tom Lee Park, a new waterfront landscape in Memphis. What made this project special?
We worked closely with high-school students to figure out what would make them use the waterfront. We called it the “youth design leadership programme”. We wanted to understand people’s attitudes towards the potential park. The project wasn’t just about designing this building and park but reaching out to all Memphians for ideas and input, and making them part of the process.

How do you strike the balance between listening to the community and delivering new work?
It’s not a direct relationship between listening and what we draw on paper. In Memphis, everyone said that they wanted a basketball court but that doesn’t mean that you put a standard one in. Instead, we asked ourselves how basketball changes when it comes to the Mississippi riverfront. We realised that playing it here was like being on a stage, so we designed a court and an environment that reflect that. We took information that didn’t have any design attached to it and transformed it into something extraordinary.

In addition to listening to the community, what else informs your work?
We’re always engaging with biology and artists because those are fruitful collaborations for us. I’m researching grafting and the biological process as a way of adding new components onto existing buildings. Architecture needs to look at minimising its carbon footprint not simply by reusing buildings but by reinventing them. This will help to shift the mentality that buildings become obsolete and eventually need to be torn down. Architects are well equipped to solve problems but we can’t do it alone.

Believe it or not, the tangle-prone medium of audio tapes is making a comeback. Sales of cassettes have more than quadrupled in the US since 2015 and global pop stars from Taylor Swift to Billie Eilish now release collectible editions of their albums in the format. But the trend also extends to the associated equipment. Today the sleek Braun TG-60 tape recorder, designed by Dieter Rams and launched in 1965, fetches at least four figures on the vintage hi-fi market.

The TG 60 can be mounted on a wall and was part of Braun’s 1960s Wandanlage home audio system. Rams recognised that there was an artfulness to having the tapes unspool visibly on the wall; Braun, meanwhile, ensured that the device would deliver a standard of recording and playback quality that had previously only been accessible to professionals. The company unveiled a chrome-plated version of the TG 60 in 2021 as part of a one-off Virgil Abloh remix of the Wandanlage range but this was never put into mass production. With tape potentially on a similar path to redemption as vinyl, this might be the moment to respool.

Copenhagen architecture and design firm Standard Practice is behind this handsome new serving tray in solid Douglas fir. Made from wooden-panel offcuts sourced from flooring brand Dinesen and fitted with a square veneer base, the piece was designed in collaboration with Prolog Coffee, a specialist roastery and shop. “We pay attention to the details when designing our cafés,” says Sebastian Quistorff, the roastery’s co-founder and brand director. “Even the smallest elements matter.”

The tray draws on Japanese design traditions, from its minimal shape and use of light wood to its narrow legs that allow it to be stacked. The pieces are individually handcrafted at Standard Practice’s Copenhagen workshop and require a full day to produce, from cutting and oiling to assembling all of the elements. “It’s important that we produce everything locally,” says Henry Gibbon, co-founder of Standard Practice. “Everything just flows more naturally.”
prologcoffee.com; standardpractice.co

More than 10 years since they founded Chybik + Kristof, an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Brno, Prague and Bratislava, Ondrej Chybik and Michal Kristof have released their debut monograph. Published by Frame, Crafting Character consists of 14 cinematic vignettes that showcase various projects, which explore themes of affordability, repurposing used materials and community integration. With a foreword by architecture critic Aaron Betsky and captions by writer Adrian Madlener, the monograph delves deep into the studio’s design process.

For Chybik, the book addresses the most pressing issues facing the industry today. “Being an architect isn’t just about designing beautiful windows and aesthetically pleasing structures,” he says. “Quite the opposite – it is to create buildings that are made with an understanding of the environmental and social context around them. We want this book to contribute to the wave of transformation that is sweeping architectural practice.”
chybik-kristof.com

For more on Chybik + Kristof, pick up a copy of Monocle’s November issue, which features a survey of architecture and design in Czechia.