The Monocle Minute

In a month we’ll be touching down at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport for the 2025 edition of The Chiefs, Monocle’s global leadership conference, and people keep asking me, “Why Jakarta?” The Indonesian capital is what an urbanist would call a primate city. It towers over the country’s second, third and fourth cities in a similar fashion to London, Paris, Istanbul, Tokyo and Seoul. All are economic, political and cultural powerhouses that attract the vast majority of their respective nations’ talent and investment. But what makes Jakarta stand out from that cohort is the size of the country that it serves.

Indonesia is a colossus and Southeast Asia’s sole member of the G20. The world’s fourth-most populous country has roughly the same number of people as the UK, France, Turkey and Italy combined. Though a significant chunk of Indonesia’s 282 million people are still climbing up the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, their trajectory is upward and they have the energy, optimism and youth of a fast-growing developing country.

The nation is a talking point in boardrooms across Asia and the spending power of Jakarta’s newly affluent middle class can already be seen across the capital, which is why international brands are rushing in. Over the past week or so, these office workers will have received their annual “13th-month” bonus during Ramadan and have been splurging more than usual in preparation for going home to their families for the Eid Al Fitr holiday, when Jakarta becomes eerily quiet. Some might be returning to Surabaya or Malang at the other end of Java; others will be flying to similarly remote islands across this vast archipelago. One of Monocle’s Jakarta-based photographers took the decision to drive 1,500km to his hometown.

When everyone returns to Jakarta and gets back to work, there will be much to discuss, plenty of opportunities to explore and room for debate. That’s why, from 23 to 24 April, Monocle will be gathering here for our business and leadership event. There are still some tickets left but don’t delay – we keep the audience compact at 100 seats. This is mainly so that we can do away with the need for lanyards and all squeeze inside a bar afterwards. But it also gives everyone a chance to meet face to face with the people on our amazing list of speakers from all over the Asia-Pacific. Almost all of them are founders, many are flying in and most will be staying for the duration. Indonesia will lead Southeast Asia over the next decade and Jakarta is the catalyst to all of this rapid growth. Come and take a look.

You can buy your ticket to The Chiefs here or reach out to our head of events, Hannah Grundy, at hg@monocle.com for more information.

James Chambers is Monocle’s Asia editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Milan Design Week will soon be upon us and many fans will gather in the city centre to survey its bounty – but there’s also plenty more great works to see further afield (writes Ed Stocker). Roving design exhibition Alcova has four sites in Monza and Brianza this year, while southeast of Milan the Volumnia design gallery’s new show, Le forme del tempo (“The Forms of Time”), opens tomorrow in Piacenza. The gallery, established in 2019, is housed in a deconsecrated basilica dating back to the 16th century.

Curated by the Museum of Italian Design’s Marco Sammicheli, Le forme del tempo showcases 37 wooden pieces from designer David Dolcini, accompanied by an installation that he made at the end of 2024 in the church’s forecourt. Each of the works has a geometric shape and forms a part of Dolcini’s ongoing project “Timemade”. “At first I was scared by the idea of designing an installation in such a large space,” Dolcini tells The Monocle Minute. “But in the end I managed to do so by exploiting elements in common with my work, such as time, silence and the meditative aspect.”

Spain has the world’s second-largest high-speed rail network and is leading the way in Europe when it comes to transporting passengers across the country at pace (writes Julia Lasica). But French bureaucracy could squander this momentum: according to Catalan newspapers, Spain’s national railway operator, Renfe, is considering abandoning all of its services and projects in France, including popular links such as Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Madrid. The reason? Renfe’s French counterpart, SNCF, is proving to be a stick in the spokes when it comes to extending Spain’s high-speed connections to Paris.

French hostility to foreign competition has been blamed for the spat but critics point out that Renfe has put forward its older train models for connections in France. Inspectors in the country are understandably hesitant to green-light noisier, bumpier journeys for their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, the Parisian expansion – originally slated for launch in time for the 2024 Olympic Games – has been delayed until 2029. With the quarrel threatening to hamper connections and business in the wider region, it’s time for the two neighbours to set aside their differences and adopt a more unified approach.

After six years in development at a cost of almost €40m, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) finally reopens to the public today (writes Rory Jones). Brazil’s first museum of modern art has added a second building, a 14-storey monolith, that more than doubles the institution’s floor space. Clad in a pitch-black metal sheeting that contrasts with the bright-red trim of the glass-fronted 1968 original, the expanded museum is a testament to Latin America’s ever-growing art scene.

Its programme kicks off with MASP Histories, a show presenting masterworks from the museum’s 10,000-piece collection, including paintings by the likes of El Greco and Cézanne, alongside Anita Malfatti and other Brazilian modernists. Prior to the expansion, the museum only had the means to display 1 per cent of its total collection. With this new development, which features five new galleries and 66 per cent more exhibition space, São Paulo’s art offering has significantly stepped up.

To mark its centenary, Loro Piana enlisted curator Judith Clark to put together an exhibition at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai. Clark’s starting point was a decades-old archival sample book that chronicles the evolution of the brand from its mercantile origins to its high-fashion and luxury present. The result is an immersive showcase of precious cashmere and striking silhouettes, with an installation that tells the brand’s story.

Are there any objects in the show that you’re particularly excited about?
We shipped the brand’s original cast-iron thistle machine from Italy and surrounded it with flowers. This evokes a more poetic idea of industrialisation, while the thistle – a motif in Loro Piana’s emblem and collections – also plays a part in the softening process of its fabrics. It just had to be part of the exhibition.

Researching the exhibition, you took a deep dive into the brand’s fabrics. What did you discover?
In the show, we have a lab where an individual fibre is projected onto screens at 35,000 times its size. It serves to remind visitors that this is about processes and shows how, no matter the simplicity of the garment produced, it requires extraordinary investment in sourcing the right materials.

How does art enhance the storytelling in the exhibition?
When you enter, there’s a room showcasing masterpieces from Pinacoteca di Varallo, a museum in the north of Italy. Mid-century and contemporary artworks from the Sergio and Luisa Loro Piana Collection are also on display – all a testament to the family’s ongoing engagement with the art world.

Monocle’s editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, is joined on stage by Muyiwa Oki, the president of RIBA, alongside our executive producer, Carlota Rebelo, and design editor, Nic Monisse, to explore how thoughtful architecture, visionary developers and pioneering city-makers can redefine our cities.