The Monocle Minute
On Design

In this week’s dispatch, good design brings a sense of openness and progress to everything from General Motors’ deck-and-a-half Scenicruiser bus to the courtyards found in some of Japan’s brutalist architecture. Plus, we take a peek inside Carl Hansen & Søn’s in-house training workshop, The Lab, roll out the red carpet for rug manufacturer Yamagata Dantsu (pictured) and take a seat in one of Poltrona Frau’s limited run of Gio Ponti’s Dezza armchairs to celebrate the design’s 60th anniversary. Getting us under way is Monocle’s design editor, Nic Monisse.

“There’s a direct correlation between good design and good financial outcomes,” said Muyiwa Oki. “We’re working to communicate that to our decision makers.” The president of the Royal Institute of British Architects was addressing a packed room at Ned’s Club in London earlier this week for a special recording of Monocle Radio’s The Urbanist. I was lucky enough to join him onstage alongside our editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, and senior correspondent Carlota Rebelo. Over the course of an hour, we discussed the best ways in which we can make vibrant cities. Here are five takeaways.

1. Be square
Public spaces, especially our squares, piazzas and plazas, are integral to the economic and social life of our cities. Local governments should find ways to encourage activity along their fringes. Encouraging alfresco dining in pleasant weather and licensing varied retail options while thoughtfully placing benches for moments of pause (and a quick gossip) are a good start.

2. Consider the climate
Beyond using sustainable (ideally circular) materials, architects should design with the site’s microclimate in mind. Strategic building placement, informed by sun, wind and shade patterns, allows for natural light and ventilation to manage heating and cooling, keeping costs down. For examples of where this is done best, look to the Global South, where vernacular architecture has long embraced often challenging environmental conditions. “They are designing buildings to be flexible in that region,” said Oki.

3. Essential services
Cities only work if they serve their people. We can’t be relying on Amazon drivers and drone deliveries to build communities. Local councils and developers need to foster a hum of activity by providing services: a butcher, a baker, a dry cleaner, a key cutter and a shoe-repair shop can not only help out in a pinch but act as the building blocks for a friendly, watchful and vibrant neighbourhood.

4. Embrace your character
Tactile and visually compelling materials are essential for imbuing a development with character (or “aesthetic integrity”, as Oki put it). By favouring natural, locally sourced materials such as stone, timber and clay bricks when creating new structures, cities can root a project firmly in its locale.

5. Get engaged
Ultimately, a building’s success hinges on more than aesthetics. It requires active resident engagement. Cities need to cultivate communities by seeking input from locals and providing moments of collective interaction, whether in the form of shared gardens or small festivals. Doing so is paramount to establishing a sense of ownership and belonging.

Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor. For more from Muyiwa Oki, tune in to this week’s special broadcast of ‘The Urbanist’ on Monocle Radio.

Yamagata Dantsu is the northern-Japanese company behind some of the country’s most beautiful carpets. Also known as Oriental Carpet Mills, it has produced pieces for government ministries, executive boardrooms, public buildings, hotels, embassies and palaces. You’ll spot its work in places ranging from the Kabukiza, Tokyo’s most famous kabuki theatre, to the Rihga Royal Hotel Osaka.

The firm was founded in 1935 by Junnosuke Watanabe, whose grandson-in-law, Hiroaki Watanabe, now runs it with his sons Atsushi, Takashi and Naoshi. Its factory in the town of Yamanobe consists of a well-preserved cluster of pink wooden buildings from the late 1940s. The brand’s success was built on its hand-knotted and hand-tufted Chinese dantsu (carpets), made using a technique that requires hand-tying individual threads of wool onto a cotton warp at a pace of just a few centimetres per day. “These carpets are very, very dense,” says Takashi. “They require about 10 times the number of threads that you would normally expect. Hand-woven dantsu are perfect for walking on without shoes as they’re soft in texture but firm underfoot.”

Yamagata Dantsu continues to prove that a commitment to community, the preservation of traditional skills and constant innovation are the keys to lasting success. A case in point is the reintroduction of the Yamagata Dantsu Archives collection of rugs, which celebrate classically themed Japanese designs. Meanwhile, the recently launched New Crafton line focuses on smaller, supersoft rugs made in collaboration with Tokyo fashion label Yaeca.

Find out more about Yamagata Dantsu in the March issue of Monocle magazine.

Louise Lykkegaard is living her dream: she is one of 20 apprentices at The Lab, Carl Hansen & Søn’s in-house training workshop in Gelsted, Denmark. “I had always wanted to work with natural materials and furniture of this quality,” she told Monocle during a recent visit to the island of Funen. “When I came here, I knew that I was in the right place.”

The Lab was established in 2019 to pass on the craftsmanship that has defined Carl Hansen & Søn over its 117-year existence. Apprentices work on restoring pieces for existing customers and reintroducing designs from the company’s archives. When we visited, one of Kaare Klint’s English Chairs was undergoing a 10-week restoration but pride of place went to a newly finished Spherical Bed. Originally designed by Klint as a double bed, the unique piece has been transformed by The Lab’s apprentices.

The course attracts young people from across Denmark and spans nearly four years, with time split between The Lab and a local technical college. Training covers both handcrafting techniques and the use of digital machinery for higher-volume production. The programme ensures that the company’s commitment to craft traditions can be maintained into the future: about half of the apprentices secure full-time roles with the firm after completing their training.

To find out more about Carl Hansen & Søn’s apprenticeship programme, pick up a copy of Monocle’s‘The Forecast’, on newsstands now.

UK photographer Paul Tulett has been documenting Japan’s brutalist architecture since he moved to Okinawa in 2019. His recent book Brutalist Japan explores examples of the movement across the country and challenges negative perceptions of the style, countering the idea that it sits uneasily with a culture celebrated for more soothing aesthetics. Here, he tells us about his fascination with these buildings and how they fit within Japan’s built environment.

How do you respond to critics who say that brutalism clashes with Japan’s lightweight wooden tradition?
Any such criticism is based on an understandable ignorance of local history. The progenitors of brutalism, Alison and Peter Smithson, stated that their main influence was traditional Japanese architecture: its honesty, practicality and respect for good ratios and form. Perhaps more than anywhere else, architecture in Japan reflects the threat of natural disasters, meaning that brutalism here is born of necessity. Okinawa, for instance, is seasonally battered by typhoons so homes must be sturdy. That’s why most new dwellings are built from concrete, a material that was swiftly adopted to meet postwar reconstruction needs.

What sets Japanese brutalism apart?
There’s often an elegance that you might not associate with brutalism. The buildings are a result of exquisite carpentry by skilled craftsmen who make the timber moulds. I often see the combination of concrete with glass and timber, which works really well, particularly when it incorporates greenery. Another major difference is that brutalism here has absorbed features of local tradition, culture and geography. In Okinawa, you see it in the use of breeze blocks, the presence of courtyards and the blending of traditional rooftops with modern concrete. There’s also the fact that many Japanese examples still look pristine.

Can you give us some examples that people might not be familiar with?
One remarkable building is the Kihoku Astronomical Museum in Kagoshima. I one jokingly said that its architect, Takasaki Masaharu, must have taken inspiration from the moon crab on the cover of The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land album. Another example is Keihan Uji Station in Kyoto, which looks like something straight out of Star Wars. Both were completed in 1995, outside the timeframe that people typically associate with brutalism and falling more into the “Nubru” category – a term that I’ve come up with to capture the fact that many contemporary builds in Japan fit the brutalist mould.

For more from Paul Tulett, tune in to ‘Monocle on Design’ on Monocle Radio.

Italian designer Gio Ponti’s Dezza armchair is getting a new look to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Poltrona Frau is releasing a limited run of the design, for which 60 pieces will be upholstered in fabric featuring previously unpublished illustrations by Ponti. The eye-catching pattern consists of 26 stylised, cobalt-blue hands wending their way across the back and base of the chair on a solid cream background.

“We always try to deepen the cultural significance of the original design that, above all, celebrates the creative process behind the products,” says Nicola Coropulis, Poltrona Frau’s CEO. Sophisticated yet playful, the new upholstery reflects Ponti’s mastery as a designer of chairs.
poltronafrau.com

Multi-level buses are perhaps most closely associated with the UK but they also had a moment across the pond. After the Second World War, General Motors tasked Raymond Loewy – a star industrial designer who was the first in his profession to grace the cover of Time magazine – to come up with a new kind of bus. His silver deck-and-a-half design was picked up by Greyhound, which used more than 1,000 of them to ferry passengers across the country until the 1970s.

The PD-4501, popularly known as the Scenicruiser, had seating for 43 passengers and was the largest, most luxurious long-distance bus that had been built in the US until that point. Greyhound marketed them as “sensational coaches – raised-level, panoramic sightseeing, tasteful appointments, unbelievably smooth operation (Scenicruiser actually floats on air)”. That might have been a slight exaggeration but it wouldn’t hurt to get some of the Scenicruiser’s design ambition back on the highway today.

Madrid-based interior-design firm LO 2 Studio offers an in-depth look at its work in a new book published by Ediciones El Viso. Luisa Olazábal: LO 2 Studio shows how the practice’s lead designers, Luisa Olazábal and Luis Ojeda, aren’t confined to any one speciality and regularly venture into the outdoors through their landscaping division Locus Landscape Architecture.

The volume presents a selection of the studio’s projects since its founding in 2004, all meticulously captured by Spanish photographer Marta Bermejo. Covering Spain, the UK and many other European locations, it showcases the firm’s ability to seamlessly integrate its work into its environment by prioritising the use of local, handcrafted materials. As such, Luisa Olazábal: LO 2 Studio is a delight for aficionados of calm, beautifully executed spaces – and a welcome dose of Spanish sunshine for the coffee table.
edicioneselviso.com