Issues

Editor’s letter: From horse manure to e-bikes, our November issue shows how mobility keeps changing city life

Unfortunately, it transpires that “The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894” is an urban myth. The story was that someone had written to The Times of London that year predicting that every street in the capital would be buried under nine feet of manure within 50 years if something wasn’t done about the pooping horses that transported goods and people around the city. But what is true is that there were, according to the London Transport Museum, some 300,000 such animals in London in the late 1890s. And yes, they left a lot of manure in their wakes. Oh and regularly dropped dead on the streets.

It’s a useful image to mentally hold when people harumph about the number of share bikes on our streets. London has about 55,000 and they cause daily debate as riders discard them willy-nilly on pavements. As someone who uses every form of urban transport, I understand the disdain in which e-bikers are held (especially when I’m doing my best to sympathise with an irked taxi driver). But I also know how they unlock the city in miraculous ways. A 40-minute Tube journey swapped for 20 minutes of pedal pushing on a pleasant day? Bliss.

So, while there are splutters and missteps, for every tale of e-bike armageddon or how in the 1950s flying on a plane was a moment of unbridled glamour, actually great democratic steps are being taken around the world when it comes to mobility – and, thank goodness, none of them involve shovelling dung.

To capture some of the changes at play, each year we compile a survey of best-in-class operators and innovators, plus some of the challenges on the road ahead. This time we get you on board the Shinkansen’s new supreme class in Japan, nip through Nairobi’s traffic on an electric motorbike and hear what the rise of Chinese automakers means for the once-untouchable soft-power influence of Germany’s car marques.

This issue is also our autumn Design Special, with a couple of star commissions from our newly elevated Nic Monisse – he has gone from design editor to executive editor (design), gaining some nicely crafted brackets and a dollop of extra gravitas. Fancy job titles aside, Monisse has commissioned a fine essay from our design correspondent, Stella Roos, about a 1947 competition by Moma in New York to find the standard for inexpensive furniture and kick-start the postwar American design scene. It’s fascinating how many now-classic designs were generated by the competition but Roos also asks whether today, when you can buy a new sofa for a couple of hundred pounds, we have too much affordable design.

Monisse has also been busy cajoling 10 designers and architects to take us to a building that has shaped their practice and outlook. Theaster Gates takes us to an electrical substation in Chicago, while we join Joana Abreu at her father’s office in Abu Dhabi. I wonder what shaped me? Perhaps growing up in a 1960s home has left me always feeling at ease around modernism and as a fan of a straight, clean line and plentiful light.

Finally, there’s our Expo. This is Monocle issue 198 and I’m delighted that, as we approach our 20th “birthday”, our founding promise to always innovate in print still burns bright. This month, we have doubled the length of the Expo section for the first time to allow Thomas Prior’s photographic profile of the Tokyo Fire Department to blast across the pages like a gallery exhibition. This is why magazines continue to remain such powerful cultural plays. It’s also why we love making Monocle.

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

Behind the hose at Tokyo Fire Department’s elite Hyper Rescue 8 unit

On a wet autumn morning in Tokyo, four firefighters in hazmat suits are trying to pull an unconscious person from a basement room that’s filled with poisonous gas. They only have 15 minutes before the oxygen tanks on their backs run out. Despite their ungainly attire, they move with precision. One firefighter patches the leaking pipe while the other three strap the slumped figure on the floor into a stretcher. Within 10 minutes, they have all climbed up two flights of stairs and are back outside. Thankfully, this is just a training exercise. But the next bit isn’t. An alert comes buzzing over the PA system and the firefighters freeze. A man has sprayed an unknown substance over teachers at a school in Higashiyamato city. At least two people are injured. “This is not a drill,” Tokyo Fire Department (TFD) official Yuto Azuma tells Monocle.

A dozen firefighters load up three vans with hazmat suits, oxygen masks and tanks, testing kits and gauges. Seconds later they speed away, sirens blaring. All are members of Hyper Rescue 8 (8HR), one of five TFD teams that are called upon in the most serious emergencies. The units were formed in 1996 after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake levelled Kobe, killing more than 6,400 people and injuring almost 43,800 others. Terrorist attacks, chemical fires, toxic spills, nuclear meltdowns, landslides and volcanic eruptions all fall within their purview. When Monocle meets 8HR at its base in Takichawa, on the outskirts of Tokyo, the team has just returned from weeks spent battling wildfires in Iwate prefecture on the northern tip of Honshu, Japan’s largest island.

With 18,800 personnel, the TFD is the world’s largest fire brigade, responsible for safeguarding a megalopolis of 14 million residents and millions of daily visitors. Its ¥310bn (€1.7bn) annual budget helps to maintain a fleet of 2,000 special-purpose trucks, off-road vehicles, ambulances, boats, cranes, motorcycles, helicopters, amphibious vehicles, drones and robots. Though, in some respects, Japan’s capital has never been safer, climate change has increased the frequency of extreme-weather incidents including heatwaves, typhoons and torrential rain. In April the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) began to use the term kokushobi, which means “brutally hot day”, for when temperatures soar to 40C or higher. (For Tokyo, the all-time high was 40.8C in 2018.) Rising temperatures have resulted in more fires. In 2024 the TFD mobilised for more than 4,500 fires, the highest number in a decade. Paramedics were also the busiest that they had ever been, with ambulances dispatched 935,373 times – about once every 34 seconds. TFD’s ambulances have seen a surge of calls for heatstroke cases and have had to reassess their training guidelines since 2017, when a paramedic died of heatstroke following a summertime drill.

Firefighters and medics have just arrived for their shift at the Ikebukuro Fire Station, one of 81 stations and 200 substations in the metropolitan area. After daily calisthenics come vehicle inspections. Every working part of the gleaming machines is checked: engines are revved, brakes are slammed, sirens are sounded and water-pump switches are flipped. Next, all of the firefighters’ gear is laid out on the garage floor: coats, trousers, boots, gloves, helmets, oxygen masks, stretchers, hoses and defibrillators. At dusk, the whole process will be repeated. “We try to leave here within a minute of the alarm sounding,” says Toru Hishinuma, who heads Ikebukuro’s fire investigations. “Everything has to be ready to go because every second counts.”

From the rear of a water-pump truck, firefighters lower a two-wheeled cart laden with hoses. The Ikebukuro district has one of Tokyo’s busiest railway stations, which links the city centre and suburbs to the north and west. Around it, hotels, department stores, theatres and restaurants pack the labyrinthine streets, many of which are too narrow for fire engines. “If we can’t get the trucks close enough to a fire, we use the carts to move extra hoses,” says Hishinuma. Nearby, firefighters and a paramedic are huddling around several maps. These drivers keep binders of them to memorise the fastest routes to any address within 6 sq km of the station. “On our days off, we go out and wander the streets,” says Shoki Yamada, who drives one of the station’s two water-pump trucks. “I know which streets my truck can and can’t pass through, and which corners are too tight to get around.”

Tokyo has had fire brigades since the Tokugawa shogunate established the city (then called Edo) as its seat of power in the early 17th century. The modern TFD began as a single fire station with 12 firefighters and a Leyland fire engine in 1923, near what is now Tokyo Central Station. The capital has since been ravaged by fires twice: after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and during the Allied firebombing raids at the end of the Second World War, which destroyed almost 60 per cent of the city’s buildings. Tokyo’s wartime experience led to strict building codes and zoning regulations, which included street-widening initiatives and regular inspections for fire-safety violations. Around this time, the Shobodan – a volunteer corps of 26,600 civilian firefighters – was also formally established.

The TFD’s new recruits are young and hail from across the country. “Most people seem to recognise how demanding it is to be a firefighter, working 24-hour shifts and putting your life on the line to save others,” says Ryosuke Tomoguchi, a 37-year-old former Tokyo firefighter who runs Tosho Juku, a cram school for those studying to become one. After six months of training, recruits are assigned to a station. Here, they work one day on, two days off. At the Ikebukuro Fire Station in the city’s northwest, firefighters are on call from 08.30 until 08.40 the following morning and spend the night at the station. During the day, they drill in a half-completed structure behind the building – spraying from trucks, scaling walls with ladders and carrying dummies. Every few weeks, teams participate in night-time sessions that test their skills in the dark.

Ayuna Shimohara, who is one of Ikebukuro’s five female firefighters, is put through daily drills that are aimed at reinforcing the basics, such as putting on oxygen masks, connecting hoses and extending ladders. “The drills test your stamina and physical fitness,” says the 24-year-old. Both attributes are crucial, as is adamantine mettle.

Shortly after Genta Saito joined in 2021, he was dispatched to the scene of a gas explosion at a restaurant. “Our team leader warned us that there might still be gas in the air and a chance of another explosion,” says the baby-faced 27-year-old. “I was so scared that I was shaking.” Masatoshi Komatsu’s most terrifying experience sounds like a firefighting cliché. “Years ago I had to save a kitten that a dog had chased into a tree,” says the 51-year-old driver. Komatsu stood fully outstretched on the top rung of a three-piece extension ladder. “I was so afraid that I would fall.”

The physical demands of training, long hours and lure of higher pay in the private sector lead many TFD firefighters to leave the job before retirement. The average length of service is 16 years and some who stay become instructors at the Honjo Life Safety Learning Centre, in Tokyo’s Sumida ward. One of three that the Tokyo Fire Department operates, the centre opened in 1995 as a free, interactive disaster-simulation theme park for the public to learn about fires, floods, storms and earthquakes. On a weekday, preschoolers push on a door that floodwater is pressing shut from the other side, while a dozen college students take turns duckwalking through a room filled with (harmless) smoke.

In the earthquake room, Monocle and three PR officials are curled up on the floor. A moment later, the ground is bucking violently. “When there’s a big earthquake, you can only think about protecting yourself,” shouts Shinji Kitamura, the centre’s deputy head and a retired firefighter. “You won’t be able to do anything else.” We put on coats and boots to enter a room where we get lashed by wind and rain. “If it’s pouring and you can’t see what’s in front of you, then you shouldn’t be outside,” he says. Kitamura once saw a police officer on a flooded street fall into an open manhole. From simulated disasters, he explains, people learn how to reduce the chances of injury and property damage.

But there’s only so much that the public can prepare for and that an ordinary fire brigade can do. Which is why 8HR exists. It is the only elite squad that can deal with major earthquakes as well as nuclear, biological and chemical disasters. It has machinery capable of digging for survivors in a house buried in a landslide and souped-up trucks to shoot fire-retardant foam at, for example, a burning tyre factory. The unit led the emergency response to the nuclear-reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011 (Japan’s worst nuclear accident) and the 2014 eruption of Mount Ontake on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures.

Today’s school attack in Higashiyamato turns out to be less severe than feared: the substance was just pepper spray. The reality is that 8HR rarely sees much serious action. Its members spend the time between drills and callouts testing new equipment. Ryo Yokota, a 36-year-old paramedic, is showing off a dog-like robot. He uses a monitor and video-game controller to get it to pick up objects with a claw. One day the robot could be the eyes and ears of rescuers searching through rubble for earthquake survivors. Across the yard, another team is lowering one of its members upside-down by rope from a balcony to a mat below. “Tokyo has a lot of narrow wells,” says Keita Morikawa, the team’s 41-year-old leader. “This is what we would do to save someone who had fallen into one.” As we watch, Captain Mitsuaki Kobayashi, 8HR’s second in command, leans over. “We must be prepared to deal with anything.”

Etihad Rail’s passenger debut puts the UAE’s public transport on the right track

From the window of the 08.19 to Fujairah, Monocle watches a man run the length of the platform at Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed City Passenger Train Station, a cup of coffee in hand. The coffee isn’t remarkable but a dash for an intercity train is – at least, here in the Gulf. People in the region are so accustomed to the freedom of driving that a railway timetable is an unfamiliar consideration.

On board, impeccably uniformed hostesses welcome us with more coffee and chocolates. The UAE knows how to make travel feel like an occasion. The challenge for Etihad Rail, which began running trains across a hugely expanded network this summer, is to make rail travel feel routine. In June passenger services started connecting Abu Dhabi and Fujairah using an existing 900km freight network. The trains, capable of reaching 200km/h, make the journey in 111 minutes. Dubai and Al Dhaid joined the line at the end of September, with the centrepiece trip from Dubai to Abu Dhabi taking about an hour.

These changes – linking the country’s two principal economic centres and allowing travellers to avoid the car-clogged Sheikh Zayed Road – could revolutionise how people get around. Inside Monocle’s carriage, most of the passengers are Khaleeji (from the Gulf). They read the Qur’an or scroll through the news on their phones as apartment blocks give way to pylons and scrub. A trolley brings tea and spiced milk tea. As we approach Fujairah, many gaze out the windows at the changing scenery.

For residents, the railway could be transformative. A reliable service would make taking a job in another emirate far easier and give greater independence to those who don’t drive. Any reduction in car traffic would also benefit those who never even board a train.

“Every great piece of national infrastructure has two beginnings: the day it’s built and the day people begin making it their own,” Azza Al Suwaidi, Etihad Rail’s COO, tells Monocle. Early ticket sales have been encouraging – 150,000 were bought by mid-September – but it remains to be seen how many regular drivers change their habits. Monocle’s journey suggests that the experience needs some tweaks. There’s a persistent rumble from the carriage floor and the wi-fi is patchy. Passengers bound for Dubai or Abu Dhabi’s main station also have to carefully plan a trip at either end (see box). On our visit, the board at Mohamed bin Zayed City Passenger Train Station lists just three Fujairah departures across the day. Comfort-class trips between Abu Dhabi and Dubai are reasonably priced at AED39 (€9.5) but if repeated daily, with taxi fares on top, the calculation changes.

The network will become more useful after the planned openings in Liwa and Madinat Zayed in November, plus three more in Al Dhafra in December and Sharjah’s University City in March 2027. Hafeet Rail is building a connection to Oman too. And a separate, fully electrified high-speed line is expected to bring Dubai and Abu Dhabi within 30 minutes of each other at speeds of up to 350km/h.

Approaching Abu Dhabi on our return, we spot some passengers touching up their make-up – something that they couldn’t do if they were driving. This is the sort of simple perk that could make the railway indispensable in the UAE.

‘We need to deliver history and culture.’ Volvo’s design chief, Thomas Ingenlath, on how the carmaker plans to not only survive, but go premium

The global car market is in the midst of a huge upheaval. Chinese electric-vehicle (EV) manufacturers have eaten away at the sales of established Western brands to the point that giants including Volkswagen are laying off tens of thousands of workers. The EU has responded by raising import duties, relaxing its climate commitments and even threatening to exclude Chinese companies from the bloc entirely – which the US has already done. So where does that leave smaller legacy European brands such as Volvo, whose position is further complicated by the fact that it has been majority-owned by Chinese automotive group Geely (which also owns EV brands Zeekr and Lynk & Co) since 2010?

The Gothenburg-based company celebrates its 100th anniversary next year and is planning to launch an unprecedented 13 new models to celebrate. “When you sit in a car like this, you realise the strength in having a design heritage,” says its chief design officer, Thomas Ingenlath, as he prepares to weave a bright-orange 1975 Volvo 242DL through the Gothenburg traffic. “Developing a brand in an evolutionary way is totally different from starting with a blank page.” The 62-year-old German has done both – as the CEO of Geely stablemate Polestar and, prior to that, as the vice-president of design at Volvo, where he returned this year. His job now is to evoke the brand’s history without resorting to retro; ensure the survival of a European brand within a Chinese group, while competing with other companies both within and without it; and continue the transition to electric at a time when European efforts appear to be stalling. Volvo once pledged to be all-electric by 2030. Now it hopes to be “over 90 per cent”.

Ingenlath has returned to Volvo at the same time as its CEO, Håkan Samuelsson. Is this the car world’s equivalent of the Oasis reunion? “Hmm, not so many arguments,” he says with a laugh. They are certainly reuniting at an interesting moment. Chinese companies enjoy highly beneficial conditions in terms of government support, environmental frameworks and labour rules. Ingenlath points out that there were the same kinds of accusations when Japanese cars arrived in Europe in the 1970s. “But the competition has to be fair,” he adds.

Monocle meets the man responsible for some of the most elegantly proportioned cars of recent decades, epitomised by his 2013 Volvo Coupe Concept, at his favourite coffee shop in central Gothenburg. The plan is to take a drive out of the city, before ending up at a “top-secret” warehouse used to store 300 cars from every era of Volvo’s history. Do car buyers even care about brands any more? “My children are still very aware of brands – in luxury goods, in fashion and also in cars,” he says. “It is not some shallow advertising thing. It is about the values that you deliver.”

Ingenlath cites brands such as Rolex and Louis Vuitton that excel at adding value through design. “We have to go premium,” he says. “We made that jump in perception with the XC90 12 years ago. In Sweden, there is still an attitude that a Volvo is a car of the people but in America the XC90 made it a prestige brand. That’s what we have to do to survive. Now, we have to go more and more to electric cars.” The challenge here is that EV technology has also affected a key element of a car’s appearance. “They don’t require as much cooling so everyone has decided that they don’t need a grille. That means you lose the ‘face’ of the car.” Ingenlath can’t divulge too much about Volvo’s near-future but a new face will be revealed next year to mark the centenary.

We are now heading out towards the Kattegat Coast, close to where Ingenlath and his family have lived for 14 years. “Gothenburg is great because you can be out in nature in just a few minutes but it’s still a big industrial city,” he says. He spent last year commuting to Geely’s design centre in Shanghai, which he still visits every three weeks or so. Geely’s long-term position as majority shareholder might make Volvo seem like a Chinese Trojan horse but Gothenburg still produces more cars than any other Volvo plant. And though they benefit from parent-company technology, the technological traffic goes two ways. “Geely has a big safety centre in China, which is inspired by the safety centre that we have here,” he says.

In Ingenlath’s homeland, Volkswagen’s crisis is highly political. Things are different in Sweden. “The tradition here is not to interfere,” he says as we head back into the city. “An industry needs to be strong enough to survive on its own.” Soon, we’re not far from the Volvo plant, which has the capacity to produce 300,000 cars a year of the company’s annual production of some 700,000 cars.

Most of the cars that Monocle sees in Gothenburg seem to be Volvos and we half-expect the traffic to part for our highly visible icon – but we have to wait our turn at junctions. Arriving at the secret warehouse, we find 300 or so cars from the past 100 years: production models, show cars and competition heroes. It’s a fitting place to end a discussion about the brand’s values and future. “We have to fight for our existence,” says Ingenlath. “We need to deliver history and culture. This is a 100-year-old company with incredible values. I would love that to continue in the next century.”

How Marc Grebler turned a family workshop into a maker of bespoke Land Rover Defenders

Born in Barcelona and raised in Geneva, Marc Grebler studied finance in the UK before deciding to take his career off-road. Back in Spain, he turned his boyhood passion for four-wheel-drive vehicles into a small family business that restores, customises and modernises Land Rover Defenders.

“My grandfather on my mother’s side had a workshop just outside Barcelona that specialised in servicing Saabs,” says Grebler. “But Saab stopped making cars in 2015. Shortly afterwards, my grandfather died and there wasn’t much for the mechanics to do.” After a period of inactivity at the workshop, he approached his aunt, who had been running the business for her father, and suggested trying something new.

“I was always a car fan and fell in love with Land Rover Defenders in my teens,” he says. “At the time, you could pick them up for very little in Spain. My idea was to renovate Defenders in my grandfather’s workshop. I was still at university and the family thought that I was crazy, so we decided to start with one vehicle. When it sold, we began to see the idea’s potential and Costa Motor found its second wind.”

Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Though Grebler initially saw this as a setback for the company, it allowed him to spend more time in Spain with his aunt and the cars. Plus, the period had an unexpected bonus. “There was an explosion of interest in Defenders during that time,” he says. “People were buying them, painting them and selling them on for two or three times what they had paid. But we decided to double down on quality. That’s how you build trust and a loyal customer base.”

Costa Motor’s clients are predominantly wealthy European car enthusiasts who appreciate Grebler’s personal approach. No two builds are the same and the process begins with a personal consultation. “First, I ask them what they want it for,” he says. “Do they have children? Dogs? Will they drive it in the city? Is it going to Mallorca? Will they head to the beach every weekend?” Once Grebler understands his clients’ intentions, he can build the concept and source an original Defender shell. The finished models typically sell for about €160,000, plus tax.

“If it’s a businessman who wants a fun car for his holiday home in the Med, we recommend technical upholstery,” says Grebler. “He can jump in wearing a wet swimsuit, his kids can spill drinks in the back and everything is easy to clean. Someone else might want a 200TDI because that’s what his father drove. He’s looking for authenticity. For him, we recommend real leather that will age beautifully over time. It starts with a conversation.”

Grebler restricts Costa Motor’s workload to no more than 12 projects a year. A team of craftspeople – including mechanics, leatherworkers and paint specialists – spends an average of 900 hours on each car. The approach is uniquely Iberian. “They’re incredibly committed,” he says. “Most of them have families so we have found a rhythm that works for everyone. We start at 07.00, work until 10.00, then there’s a pause for breakfast. After that, they work straight through until 15.00, then head home. There’s a flexibility in Spain that you don’t find everywhere.”

As well as Grebler’s hands-on approach, what sets Costa Motor apart is its focus on materials. Leather is a key element for Grebler. “You can have the most incredible engine in the world but if the leather feels cheap, the whole experience is ruined,” he says. “We’re obsessed with how the car feels. Everything your hands touch should feel substantial. We replace plastic with aluminium wherever we can. We cover surfaces in leather. We want to keep the original character of the Defender but give it a premium feel.”

This approach extends beyond materiality. Costa Motor recently delivered a Defender 90 to a client who loves his dog so much that the team incorporated its likeness alongside the company’s wolf logo throughout the interior. Once the cars are finished, they will be sent to their new owners; so far, their destinations have included Saint-Tropez, Verbier, Andorra and Comporta.

So, with Costa Motor’s order book full until well into 2027, what’s next for the company? “I would like us to become less dependent on Defenders,” says Grebler. “We’re finally at a stage where we have almost a year’s worth of work, which gives us peace of mind. There are so many possibilities. What I really want is for a client to come to me and say, ‘I loved what you did with my Defender. I also have a Porsche 911. Can we do something equally special with it?’ That would be the dream.”
costa-motor.com

Community as archive: How Miami’s South Beach is keeping its art deco signage alive

On the shores of Miami’s South Beach is a hotel with two names. It’s ostensibly called The Tony Hotel, after historic preservationist Tony Goldman. That is what’s on its notepads, website and door. But a neon-lit tower above its façade bears the name Tiffany.

You can thank the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) for the appellation pile-up: the non-profit organisation insisted that the 1939 Tiffany sign be preserved, even though the operation of the original hotel was stymied after a lawsuit by jewellers Tiffany & Co. It was one of the neighbourhood’s art deco icons in an area defined by its finned signs, angular fonts and sills that sit above windows like curious eyebrows. Its survival was “a particularly memorable victory” for historical preservation, says Meg Lousteau, the executive director of the MDPL – a reminder of how signage can “become part of a building and part of the city’s identity, even when the business changes”.

South Beach has seen a flurry of luxury development. The Shelborne became The Shelborne by Proper in May 2025; the 1936 Ocean Spray Hotel reopened as Le Particulier in November 2025 after restoration; and the Delano threw open its doors in May after a six-year, $100m (€89.3m) renovation. In August, the 348-room W Hotel closed with plans to reopen under a new operator, Waldorf Astoria, in winter 2027.

All have preserved and restored their original signage – though the Shelborne’s neon lighting has been tweaked from the original in order to comply with turtle-protection legislation. (Bright seafront lights can disorient hatchlings on their first journeys to the sea.) The MDPL has been championing the preservation of this stretch of the city since 1976. Today about 70 per cent of buildings in Miami Beach are considered “historic” or contributing to the area’s history. Lousteau says that keeping them that way is essential. “Once historic context is lost, it cannot be recreated.”
mdpl.org

Who will be the next UN secretary-general? Ecuador’s María Fernanda Espinosa makes her case

Seven candidates are vying to become the next UN secretary-general at a time when the organisation appears to be in great peril. Trust is haemorrhaging among member states and the general public, and multilateralism is in retreat. The job of whoever succeeds the outgoing António Guterres, whose term ends in December, will be nothing less than to overhaul the entire institution.

Guterres is stepping down after a tenure that has seen huge global upheaval, including the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, and the re-election of Donald Trump. Though viewed as a competent administrator, he has lacked the global profile of predecessors such as Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, and has chosen a low-key approach at odds with seismic geopolitical events.

The candidates to replace him must strike a delicate balance. Though US scepticism about the size, budget and role of the UN means that the new secretary-general will need to signal a willingness to change, too much reforming zeal will not be popular with the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council – the UK, US, France, Russia and China – that jealously guard their veto power. To be elected, candidates take part in a series of straw polls, in which the P5 and the 10 non-permanent Security Council members cast ballots encouraging, discouraging or giving no opinion on the candidates. Once one of them has the support of at least nine Security Council members and no veto from a P5 member, they go to a full vote at the 193-member General Assembly, which traditionally backs the recommendation.

Conventional wisdom holds that a candidate from Latin America should prevail, given that just one of the previous nine secretaries-general, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, has come from the region. There’s also a feeling that it’s time for a woman to take the helm. María Fernanda Espinosa, a former Ecuadorean defence minister and a former president of the UN General Assembly, is one of the four female aspirants. Monocle sat down with Espinosa to find out about her plans for the body.

What do people want from the next UN secretary-general?
As a citizen, you want to see the secretary-general up there sitting at the table – sometimes leading but sometimes supporting too. We have seen that this is perfectly doable. All of this will be possible with a renewed, strong leadership. It’s really an advantage to know the system well but not be captured by it.

I have full respect for the main asset of the organisation, which is the very committed, high-quality staff that it has. But you cannot continue to operate under 40,000 mandates [Since 1946, more than 40,000 resolutions, decisions and presidential statements have been adopted across key UN bodies] in times when, frankly, the UN will be getting not more money but less.

What differentiates you from other candidates?
I have touched on all of the spaces and places where the UN operates. I have seen it from the perspective of a high-level government official and also been on the receiving end, negotiating national co-operation frameworks with UN teams at the country level. But I have never worked for the UN so my impulse is not to preserve the status quo. It’s to change it. I was responsible for reforming the armed forces of my country. I had to make very structural, profound changes and wasn’t afraid to do so. I received the highest decoration that the Ecuadorian armed forces provide to a non-military person. I understood that it was best for them to modernise, to change the institutional culture.

Is multilateralism really in retreat?
If you look around, everybody wants more international co-operation. It’s inevitable: we are living in times of radical interdependence. We learnt that the hard way during the coronavirus pandemic and are learning it again with the Strait of Hormuz situation. It’s impossible to say that we are on our own. The national interest is connected to our common interest and everybody understands that, at some point, we need to co-operate with each other.

How important will receiving the backing of the US be for the next secretary-general?
Persuading the US to support – and not veto – your candidacy is not just a formality. I see America as a critical partner for the future of the UN. The US is a founding member. The country has contributed the most to the UN financially. It is responsible for 20 per cent of the overall budget and more than 20 per cent of the peacekeeping operations. So it’s not only about the US being the funder of the UN. It was there at the origins of the organisation and plays a very crucial role in the three pillars of peace and security, development and human rights. So it’s symbolically, financially and politically vital to have the trust and the backing of the US.

How would you rebuild trust among citizens?
It’s true that sometimes people don’t trust what the UN is doing or what its leaders are discussing or agreeing to. That is a response to a very divided, polarised world. When I say that I will be a leader who rebuilds trust, I understand that it isn’t just something that’s declared in a memo. You have to earn it. And I think that people will trust a leadership or a leader that is seen as impartial, as not having any alignments, as faithful to the UN Charter and to international law. A person who everybody can believe in is predictable. They abide by the rules and treat everyone equally. That is very important, especially in the present times.

Why do you want to be UN secretary-general at a time like this, when the organisation is facing huge challenges?
I have something to contribute when it comes to making the organisation better and more effective. I believe that the UN has a lot more to give and has a responsibility to modernise and to revitalise itself. And this is not done by magic. It is done by putting in some hard work and by having a deep knowledge of the organisation without being captured by it. My experience of it has been more from the member-state side, from the government side. So I know what the UN can do, the frustrations that it can create, and I understand very well what the role of the secretary-general should be. I’m a reformist. I like a challenge and think I can do it.

1.
The insider
Rebeca Grynspan, Costa Rica

Taking special leave from her role as secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, economist Rebeca Grynspan emerged as an early frontrunner. The vice-president of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, Grynspan moved into UN roles and has held senior positions in trade and development. This gives her an insider perspective – her vision statement promises to make the world body “more useful, more agile and more accountable to the governments and people it serves”. With a strong track record in multilateralism, she’s seen as a safe establishment candidate and has the backing of senior figures.

2.
The dark horse
Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Guyana

Guyana’s current permanent representative to the UN and its former minister of foreign affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett has extensive experience in government and a deep understanding of the UN’s workings. She has also impressed in debates with UN staff and civil-society representatives. Though she has a relatively low international profile, this could work in her favour, because world powers are not looking for a big personality but rather a competent administrator and quiet reformer.

3.
The nuclear option
Rafael Grossi, Argentina

Once a leading contender, Rafael Grossi might have hurt his chances by not taking a leave of absence from his role as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency while campaigning. With Iran’s nuclear programme in the headlines, he has been busy with global diplomacy, which might have affected his ability to travel and lobby for the UN position. But he has been at the heart of some of the most pressing issues today and, should there be a breakthrough with Iran, he could claim some credit. But Grossi was nominated by Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, whose recent sabre-rattling about the Falkland Islands could make the veto-wielding UK apprehensive.

4.
The high-profile candidate
Macky Sall, Senegal

The president of Senegal from 2012 to 2024 and a former chair of the African Union (AU), Macky Sall is well versed in international diplomacy. Devolving some of the UN’s mandates to regional bodies such as the AU could be part of the streamlining process that many nations are demanding, so his experience will be an advantage. However, Sall’s vision might be at odds with those of some of the permanent Security Council members: he has called the body “the last vestige of a bygone world order”. While reforming the Security Council is a popular sentiment among the UN’s 193 member states, the prospect of a major overhaul is less welcome among the five permanent members, who prize their veto power.

5.
The elder statesman
Olara Otunnu, Uganda

A veteran of Ugandan politics who served as UN under-secretary-general for Kofi Annan, 76-year-old Olara Otunnu strikes a good balance between governmental and institutional experience. His candidacy has gained traction between the first few rounds of polling. He served as Uganda’s foreign affairs minister and its permanent representative to the UN, and is a respected diplomat with a good contacts book. He has campaigned on a promise of focusing on multilateral regulation of AI. If he can leverage panicked headlines about the technology into actionable talking points among the Security Council members, that could give his campaign added traction. But he could be foiled by his nominating government, which has faced criticism from UN bodies over its record on human and LGBT+ rights.

6.
The wild card
Ivonne A-Baki, Ecuador

Another Ecuadorian candidate, Ivonne A-Baki also has Lebanese heritage and served as her country’s ambassador to the US, France and Qatar. She claims close ties to Donald Trump, a relationship that she traces back to 2004, when she helped him bring Miss Universe to Ecuador. Being a Trump whisperer could be useful, given his withdrawal of the US from 31 UN entities and his threats to the body’s funding. But touting a special relationship with any one government is a risky strategy – Russia and China also have veto powers and will not want to hand the role to anyone tied to a rival. A-Baki’s candidacy is also viewed as an anomaly because she was not nominated by her home country but by tiny Polynesian nation Tonga – and she has not performed well in straw polls so far.

Where ideas have room to breathe: Ten creatives on the personal spaces that shape their work

We trust designers to make the buildings and objects that shape our lives. The amount of natural light in a home or the materials that it’s made from can change our mood; the make of a sofa can affect whether we’re able to truly unwind. So where do the people behind our furniture, homes, offices and civic buildings find inspiration? And how do these ideas find their way into their work? Here, we meet outstanding creatives in spaces that have influenced them, from dance floors to museum halls, to find out how these locations have informed their approach.

1.
Joana Abreu
Abu Dhabi office, UAE

Joana Abreu’s favourite place to clear her head is rather full: a double-height office in Abu Dhabi with pale timber shelving, packed with cameras, chairs and a Dieter Rams sound system. “You walk inside and just want to take it all in,” says the founder and creative director of design platform and shop Fount.

The office and collection belong to her father, designer Nuno Abreu. Spending time in the room, which contains so many desirable things, has taught her to ask how much is actually necessary – a useful question for someone whose working life involves deciding what other people might want to have in their homes. “In this age of Pinterest and Instagram, you can get very lost,” she says. Here, she can return to familiar objects and reconsider the features that have kept them relevant. “It helps me to focus on what is essential and functional – but beautiful at the same time.”

Joana Abreu is the creative director of Fount, a concept shop and community space.

2.
Francisco Jaramillo
Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Colombia

“When the museum opened, there was nothing else here,” says Francisco Jaramillo, the founder of design studio Fango, glancing at the gleaming high-rises and buzzing cafés that now surround the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín (MAMM). When the soaring brutalist extension was unveiled in 2015 in Ciudad del Río, a once-gritty manufacturing district, there was nothing quite like it in the city, both architecturally and culturally. Medellín was beginning to earn a reputation for its architecture but its design scene was still fairly nascent. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, something like this is happening in my city,’” says Jaramillo.

The new building, with its striking façades of concrete, glass and perforated screens, was designed by local studio Ctrl G in collaboration with Peruvian firm 51-1 Arquitectos; it is an extension of the museum’s previous space, a steel plant dating back to 1938. The architectural addition has not only gone on to transform Ciudad del Río but changed the ways in which the people of Medellín appreciate design. It began by hosting free outdoor film screenings on the last Friday of every month, making a significant cultural statement in a city marked by deep economic inequality. Jaramillo remembers arriving to find people from all walks of life huddled together in the plaza, their eyes fixed on the giant screen. It was a remarkable sight and made him realise that MAMM’s impact reached far beyond the city’s creative circle – a belief that informs his own work with local artisans. “It’s good not just for designers but for the wider community too,” he says.

Francisco Jaramillo runs Fango, a design studio based between Medellín and Barcelona, with a practice known for using local materials and working with skilled artisans.

3.
Isern Serra
Tres Xemeneies de Sant Adrià, Spain

In the early 1970s an electric utility company tapped engineering firm Informes y Proyectos to build a new power plant on the seafront in Sant Adrià de Besòs, on the outskirts of Barcelona. As its name suggests, Tres Xemeneies de Sant Adrià is defined by three chimneys that rise 200 metres into the sky, pushing exhaust fumes above Barcelona’s immediate atmosphere. Some 50 years later – and 15 years since the plant’s closure – it remains a regional landmark. “It was built for a precise and necessary purpose, with no intention of becoming beautiful,” says Isern Serra. “Yet, with time, it has acquired an extraordinary presence.”

The Barcelona-based designer has negotiated Monocle’s access to the facility, which is typically closed to the public, to show how its inadvertent longevity has made it a source of architectural inspiration. “It reinforces something that I constantly look for in my work: the idea that architecture does not need to explain itself,” he says. “I am interested in spaces that are calm, essential and honest, where materials, light and proportions are allowed to speak for themselves.” But Serra also sees it as an example of how architecture can foster a sense of community and carry shared memories. Plans were laid to demolish the plant but grass-roots local campaigns ensured its eventual preservation. Most recently, it has hosted exhibitions and events, and there are plans afoot for it to be transformed into a media hub. “Too often, buildings are replaced and the traces of their past disappear with them,” says Serra. “But a city should be able to evolve, adding layers of meaning, without losing its identity.”

Isern Serra is a Barcelona-based designer whose work spans architecture, interiors, furniture, lighting and exhibition design.

4.
Andra Matin
AM residence, Indonesia

“I created this house without any architectural drawings,” says Andra Matin, welcoming Monocle to his home in the quiet, leafy neighbourhood of Bintaro in South Jakarta. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could still design after 20 years of being an architect.” Made predominantly from concrete and kayu ulin (local ironwood), the Indonesian architect’s house is a testament to his approach to architecture – one in which he “celebrates the country’s tropicality in a modern setting”. Inspired by the traditional Balinese bale (an open-sided pavilion), Matin created a living and dining space next to a verdant garden and enticing pool, where he and his family (and 70 cats) can sit freely and enjoy Jakarta’s balmy climate, with unobstructed views of a leafy nearby square.

The home complements a wider collection of existing spaces and buildings now owned by Matin, including his studio and a neighbouring coffee shop. The result is a development that is more than a family home but rather a living, working architectural laboratory. Here, Matin has created a peaceful contrast to the bustling city, where architecture and nature combine: a chance to put into practice what he sees as the essential qualities of good architecture. “I believe in context,” he says, explaining that good design needs to be connected to place. “Whether it’s climate or culture, technological or social, design has to relate to its context.”

Andra Matin is Indonesia’s leading contemporary architect, creating homes and civic structures that are in tune with the country’s tropical climate.

5.
Stephanie Barba Mendoza
House of Koko, UK

“One of my happiest places is the dance floor,” says Stephanie Barba Mendoza. “I love music. For me, dancing is almost like a religious experience.” The Mexico-born interior designer has spent more than 20 years in the music-filled UK capital, and Koko has a special place in her heart. Monocle meets her at the House of Koko, the backstage, members-only area of the Camden venue that first opened in 1900 as a Victorian theatre, before evolving into a leading music outpost. Part of its appeal, says Barba Mendoza, is its many levels, the quality of the sound system and lighting, and, especially, the signature disco ball above the main dance floor. “But obviously the most important thing is the line-up,” she says. “It brings really great musicians.”

Beyond the dance floor, Barba Mendoza’s professional life is thriving. She established her namesake design office in 2020. Music, appropriately, permeates her work process; the same tracks that bounce from wall to wall in Koko help to give her inspiration when she’s working. “When I do anything creative, I always put my headphones on with dance music,” she says. “I get excited and I’m dancing as I’m doing stuff. I think if you’re in a good place and you feel great, you’re probably more open to making better things because you’re doing it with a happy thought or feeling.”

Stephanie Barba Mendoza is an interior designer whose bold, sensory designs include residences alongside commercial and hospitality projects.

6.
Manuel Aires Mateus
Atelier Cecílio de Sousa, Portugal

“It’s where I spend most of my time,” says Manuel Aires Mateus, as he welcomes Monocle into the office of his namesake Lisbon-based architecture firm that he established with his brother, Francisco, in 1988. The four-storey townhouse takes its name, Atelier Cecílio de Sousa, from the street on which it stands. The practice moved into the almost 250-year-old structure in 2017. The move followed a restoration that involved the complete rebuilding of its roof and the addition of another floor, with further works carried out with a light touch. Stonework, paintings and stucco ceilings were retained; a curved white staircase is the most significant addition to a building that now holds meeting rooms, workstations, two model-making workshops and a multipurpose space.

“Working in this place, which is full of experiences and has a long history, is about being part of something that reveals the sense of continuity that Europe has,” says Aires Mateus, sitting beneath a portrait of Dona Maria I, Portugal’s queen when the building was constructed in the 18th century (two additional floors had been added in the 1890s). The space, lined with tiled skirtings, wainscoting and framing panels, features a large ceiling mural of horsemen and cherubs. All of this contrasts with the geometric and monolithic architecture for which the firm is known, an approach defined by the play of light and shadow. But the building does reflect Aires Mateus’s belief in the role that memory and knowledge play in the spaces that we inhabit. “It’s about a relationship with time,” he says. “This feeling of being part of history is what remains. As an architecture studio, we like good spaces, independent from the time that they were created.”

Manuel Aires Mateus is a Lisbon-born architect who co-founded the studio Aires Mateus.

7.
Tara Lal
Florence residence, Italy

“My dream was to have a studio overlooking a garden with a pond,” says Tara Lal. Monocle meets the creative director and conservation scientist in her richly textured, book-lined studio at her home on the outskirts of Florence. Abundant natural light floods through the space, a converted greenhouse where lemon trees were once stored to survive the winter. The founder of Aranyani, a New Delhi-based conservation and creative-arts initiative, moved here in 2026. After living in an apartment, she is now settled in the four-bedroom, 14th-century Italian villa. “It has a special place in my heart,” she says of the city, adding that she studied architectural history at the University of Florence. “I really wanted a home that was lush – where I could grow my own vegetables and have a studio that connects me to the work I do.”

Every window of the home, says Lal, offers a spectacular view. “I can see the hills of Florence, cypress trees and the most beautiful ancient wisteria tree that is growing here.” There’s also an olive grove and a vegetable garden where she grows her own produce. The residence bears the marks of every previous occupant through additions and renovations. Lal is contributing too, replanting heritage varieties of Florentine fruit trees. It’s a fitting metaphor for her conservation work, which looks to bridge the gap between science and cultural heritage through education programmes and architectural installations. “We’re reviving a natural meadow to attract the bees, birds and insects that will revive the ecosystem,” she says of the villa’s garden.

Tara Lal is a creative director and conservation scientist, with an architecture diploma from London’s Architectural Association.

8.
Theaster Gates
Richard Hunt Studio, USA

A former electrical substation in Chicago holds personal significance for Theaster Gates. Built in 1909 for the city’s railways, it was acquired in 1971 by artist and sculptor Richard Hunt – a mentor to Gates – who turned it into his residence and studio.

“The first detail that makes the space important is that Richard and I spent time here together,” he says, welcoming Monocle to the vast, four-storey-high interior, flooded with natural light, thanks to towering windows and a skylight. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunt spent a year in Europe on a fellowship during which he visited Constantin Brancusi’s Parisian home-cum-studio and was inspired to create a similar set-up in Chicago. The former substation proved ideal: its huge bridge crane, a relic of its industrial past, allowed Hunt to move his large sculptures around the interior. “He made the space adapt to what he was thinking about,” says Gates. “He was constantly working between scales: nothing was too small, nothing was too big. When I think about my own work, I recognise Richard’s fearlessness around scale, his commitment to learning, his library, his maquettes.” As well as holding significance for Gates, the building has long been an important hub for Chicago’s creative community. Hunt hosted live music, art exhibitions and dance events in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and regularly welcomed guests until his death in 2023. “Richard had this tremendous willingness to say yes to friends and strangers, showing love in his studio space,” says Gates, who recently purchased the property to preserve it for future generations. “It was made beautiful and powerful partly because of his personality and spirit. I would wish that for every space I have, for every building.”

Theaster Gates is a Chicago-based designer and artist, admired in equal measure for his creative output and community building.

9.
Patricia Anastassiadis
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil

The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo on the edge of Jardim da Luz holds an important place in Patricia Anastassiadis’s life. “It’s a museum set within a park,” says the Brazilian architect. “Both were part of my childhood and played important roles in shaping who I am. Like so many museums around the world, it has the ability to transport me to different periods and moments in history. Museums offer surprises, emotions and knowledge – all of which I am constantly seeking in life.”

Work began on the building in the 1890s to the design of Ramos de Azevedo and Domiziano Rossi, with the structure originally intended to serve as the headquarters for an arts and trades school before plans changed. By 1905, the state was using it to house its painting collection. Never fully finished, with exposed brickwork throughout, it turned into an important cultural institution, earning heritage status in 1982. It underwent a significant overhaul in the late-1990s, led by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Paulo Mendes da Rocha, who embraced the building’s historical flaws, repairing the exposed brick masonry and adding a grid of glass skylights over the internal courtyards. “It has been the setting for a transformation that brought the past into the present,” says Anastassiadis. “It reflects the idea of continuity rather than rupture, which is what I believe in, both in life and in architecture.” Exemplifying this best, perhaps, are Mendes da Rocha’s sleek, steel-and-glass walkways that traverse the interior courtyards, connecting the upper-level exhibition halls. “I find them beautiful but it’s also about what they symbolise,” says Anastassiadis. “It’s the connection between past and present, and the constant search for dialogue – with the territory, people, culture, art, nature and beauty.”

Patricia Anastassiadis is a São Paulo-born architect and interior designer known for sleek hotels and residences.

10.
Sophie Lou Jacobsen
Gene’s, USA

When Sophie Lou Jacobsen first visited Gene’s, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, she was attracted by its simple, unfussy, anachronistic charm. “The dining room is a long, rectangular space full of tables set with white tablecloths, flanked by a mural on one side and a wall of mirrors on the other,” says Jacobsen when she meets Monocle at the West Village osteria. “The surprising details are the low, drop-panel ceilings and linoleum flooring. It’s not everyone’s idea of luxury and style but, thanks to this, the sound in the room is unbeatable.”

The French-American designer says that this is a key ingredient in the success of Gene’s because it’s the kind of place where patrons want to eavesdrop. “You overhear incredible stories being told by the people sitting around you,” adds Jacobsen. “The room is full of the most interesting West Village characters.” (It wouldn’t be unusual to see Sarah Jessica Parker or Parker Posey posted up at the bar, for example.) Bouncing between New York, Paris and Milan, Jacobsen is known for creating elegant homewares, with everything from her cutlery to water pitchers and glassware bringing a sense of playfulness to dining tables. Her latest collection, Disco Aperitivo, was a nostalgic nod to 1970s and 1980s Italian disco glamour and the ritual of aperitivo. It’s fitting, then, that she loves Gene’s. The menu is classic Italian-American fare: veal cutlet parmigianas and generous side servings of spaghetti. The booze – provided by longtime bartender Franco – flows just as freely as the conversation. “It’s a place you can come back to over and over again,” says Jacobsen. “It makes New York feel like home.”

Sophie Lou Jacobsen is a French-American designer renowned for creating homewares, lighting and collectable pieces for everyday use.

Good design doesn’t have to cost a fortune: Lessons from the Moma’s low-cost furniture competition

On an October evening in 1947, New York’s cultural elite gathered for a soirée in the Rainbow Room of the Rockefeller Center to inaugurate a project that was intended to kick-start the country’s design industry. The venture was a collaboration between the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) and three of the country’s leading furniture manufacturers: Johnson Carper, Knoll and Herman Miller. Among the attendees were Nelson A Rockefeller, as well as the assistant secretary-general of the UN at the time, Henri Laugier. Why were they clinking glasses? Not for a vernissage, nor a fundraising gala. Instead, it was for the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design.

In a speech to patrons at the dinner, Moma’s then-director, René d’Harnoncourt, noted that though the construction of affordable housing had become a political priority, scant attention had been paid at that point to “good inexpensive furniture”. The modern, postwar home needed new types of furnishings that were of high quality but “moderate in price”; “comfortable but not bulky”; and “easily moved, stored and cared for”. The competition invited designers from across the world to submit their ideas in two categories: seating units and storage units. Winning entrants would receive sizable cash prizes, as well as the glory of being featured in a Moma exhibition and the lucrative opportunity for their designs to be put into mass production.

It’s difficult to imagine Moma, or any other such institution, setting up a similar competition in the 21st century. Leaving aside the far less altruistic interests of contemporary tycoons, the general sentiment in the design industry is that we are already awash with far too much cheap furniture.

American furniture e-tailer Wayfair, which sells sofas for less than €220 (and with free delivery), reported annual revenue of €10bn in 2024. The most recently reported figures show that Amazon’s US sales in the sector grew by 16 per cent to an estimated €15.7bn. These juggernauts peddle “fast furniture” – easily shipped constructions that are engineered to last only a few years. When moving house, it’s often cheaper to throw out then replace a sofa or bookcase than hire a van to transport them.

Meanwhile, legacy brands that resisted moving production overseas have no chance to compete on price or delivery times, so have shifted focus from the many to the few, offering exquisitely made pieces to discerning, deep-pocketed consumers. Museums, galleries and upscale retailers now feel a duty to provide protected islands of high-quality design in the surrounding oceans of junk.

The throwaway culture enabled by ultra-affordable design presents a gigantic sustainability problem – millions of tonnes of furniture become landfill every year. In a recent survey of 2,000 British adults by heritage pottery brand Denby, nearly a third admitted to putting usable homeware in the bin. Add to that depressing statistic the sad uniformity and aesthetic compromises that come from living with chipboard bookcases, faux-marble counter-tops or pleather couches.

Most “quality” manufacturers refuse to compete with makers of fast furniture when it comes to price. But that does not mean that they should abandon all attempts at affordable design. After all, many of the best designs through time – and, indeed, the modern movement in general – were driven by a desire to make useful things budget-friendly.

Moma’s exhibition of low-cost furniture accepted submissions from January to October 1948 and drew more than 3,000 entries from 31 countries. Among them was a chair that’s familiar to many today. Charles and Ray Eames had experimented with a material that they had discovered at a war-surplus shop: a fibreglass-laced plastic invented by the US army for use in aircraft antennas shrouds. Together with a Los Angeles-based company, the designers developed a method for pressing the lightweight material into seats with organic forms. The prototype sent to Moma was deemed by the organisers to be “a most desirable addition to the gamut of materials available for modern rooms” and awarded second prize in the seating category. The Molded Fiberglass Chair was put into production by Herman Miller; it’s a top seller to this day.

The Eames motto was, “Getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.” The Molded Fiberglass Chair is an example of how they harnessed industrial materials and methods to achieve that goal. The manufacturing process required a bespoke hydraulic press but over time the production cost per chair was low. And thanks to the seat’s studied ergonomics, it was comfortable enough to be produced without any padding or upholstery.

The chair is also a case in point that it’s generally more difficult for designers to make a cheap, well-made item than an expensive one. While a chair built from cherry wood is almost guaranteed to look nice, creating something charming out of plastic demands more skill and imagination, as well as a knowledge of materials and the capabilities of industrial production methods: thinking about the joints to find the simplest solution; an awareness of local resources and expertise; and prototyping. It requires a curiosity of the new, such as the impulse to walk into an army-surplus shop.

The Moma exhibition that was based on the competition, Prize Designs for Modern Furniture, featured many other gems. There was a chair by Cuban-Mexican and Mexican designers Clara Porset and Xavier Guerrero that used the most rudimentary materials – a thin steel frame wrapped with rope or plastic cord – to make an elegant indoor or outdoor seat. Danish designer Hans J Wegner submitted a design for an armchair made from bent plywood. It might not have won but it did become the basis for the evergreen Shell chair. Ditto a modular bookcase by Franco Albini that had adjustable feet. Ten years later, it had been evolved into the Infinito – a stalwart of the Cassina catalogue.

In 1948, the same year that these designers sent their ideas to Moma, a young entrepreneur in Sweden named Ingvar Kamprad started selling furniture. Ikea was founded with the same guiding principle of affordability. By adopting flat-packed, self-assembly furniture, the company redefined accessibly priced home furnishings. Kamprad also encouraged his designers to experiment. In the 1970s, he gave his factory a few kilometres of jeans fabric with which to innovate. The result was Tajt, a low, denim-upholstered lounge chair that is now a coveted vintage Ikea piece. Many famed designers have since devised products for the company, including Verner Panton’s Vilbert chair from 1993, which was assembled from four MDF boards painted in the designer’s brazen colours.

That’s in stark contrast to the trajectory of the designs from Moma’s competition that have remained in production. The Molded Fiberglass Chair retails in Europe for about €1,000. The CH07 Shell chair, produced by Carl Hansen & Søn, costs about €4,000. Albini’s Infinito bookcase will set consumers back more than €9,000 for the smallest configuration of five stacked shelves. There are many reasons for this price inflation, including the cost of raw materials, disruption in supply chains and high manufacturing costs in Europe and the US. But there’s also the notion, perhaps born from a need to differentiate from the mass-market players, that “real” design is inherently expensive. The result is that consumers now have relatively few options in between a Wayfair bookcase and Vitsoe shelves. The former can be delivered to your door within days; the latter requires a quote from a dealer. The middle ground that most mid-century classics were originally made to serve has all but disappeared.

Mette and Rolf Hay saw this gap in the market in 2002, when the couple worked for Gubi, the Copenhagen design house that also carried Meda-based Cappellini in Denmark. They noticed that many of the people who coveted the Italian furniture brand’s pieces couldn’t afford them; those who could often found them too strange. With their brand, Hay, the couple set out to work with the best designers to make accessibly priced furniture and have since proven that this is not an impossible proposition. Hay’s collection includes work by leading contemporary designers Stefan Diez, Naoto Fukasawa and Muller van Severen, alongside colourful plastic crates and cutting boards that put a joyful spin on industrial products, without charging intimidating prices.

Larger companies have caught on too. Italian company Flos asked designer Philippe Malouin to come up with a new product that would specifically be affordable. He rose to the occasion with Bilboquet, a small table lamp that moves on a round magnet. With a price of €295, this top-selling piece has made Flos relevant to a younger generation. In a similar vein, last year Knoll launched a wooden dining chair by US designer Jonathan Muecke that retails for about €775. Meanwhile, a number of fast-furniture brands have started aiming a little higher in terms of design credentials and cost. Zara Home has launched a furniture collection with Belgian designer Vincent van Duysen that features supple ecru leather sofas and marble side tables. Ikea has begun reissuing pieces from its archive and is commissioning work by a new wave of design talent, including Andu Masebo and Emanuele Stamuli.

This middle ground is arguably where design really belongs. Too cheap and homes will look like university dorms; too expensive and the furniture loses its functional purpose (nobody enjoys placing a full cup onto a five-figure coffee table). The power of design lies in its tactile role in people’s everyday lives. It’s simple economics that cost is a key factor in the number of people that a piece of furniture will reach. Designers might profess disdain for fast-furniture retailers but many will secretly wish to work with them – economies of scale can also be put to work to spread good ideas and good taste.

A case in point is the globalisation of the café chair. From Athens to Nairobi and Cairo to Jakarta, a city’s casual bars, cafés and kiosks almost all spill onto the pavement using one of three chair models: the bistro, the monobloc or the aluminium chair. The bistro is a neat, foldable French design with slender iron legs and wooden slats for a seat and backrest. The monobloc, which is made of injection-moulded white plastic, is believed to be the world’s most popular perch. The aluminium bar chair is available with or without armrests and comes with a shiny table. All can be bought from big-box retailers the world over and are so ubiquitous that their specific designers have been largely lost to history. But they are also fairly comfortable, can withstand heavy use and are astonishingly affordable. In short, they meet the criteria that Moma laid out in 1947.

In the 1970s, Dieter Rams put those criteria in a slightly different way in his “Ten Principles for Good Design”. The celebrated German design director for Braun (who created those Vitsoe shelves) dictates that good design should be innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thought through, environmentally friendly and involve “as little design as possible”. Nowhere in this manifesto does Rams mention price. Some things have reasons to be expensive and many do not. The mistake is to assume that a high price tag is what determines quality.

A price on quality: Ten pieces that set the standard for affordable furniture design

Trial and error can turn ordinary materials into enduring classics. Here, we share a selection of beautiful, useful and accessible designs.

Bilboquet lamp, 2023
Philippe Malouin
A new design classic with a rotating light source, produced by Flos.

CH07 Shell Chair, 1963
Hans Wegner
Plywood chair inspired by the 1948 Moma competition.

Colour Cabinet Floor, 2022
Muller van Severen
Colourful cabinet for Hay that’s playful and functional.

Infinito bookcase, 1956
Franco Albini
Conceived for Moma’s contest and still produced today.

Molded Fiberglass Armchair, 1948
Charles & Ray Eames
Now in production with Herman Miller and Vitra.

Rope chair, 1950
Clara Porset and Xavier Guerrero
Sleek steel-framed chair wrapped in plastic cord.

Sidetable 05, 2024
Vincent van Duysen
Metal and marble side table for Zara Home.

Tajt denim lounger, 1972
Gillis Lundgren
Chair for Ikea that folds out into a single mattress.

Monobloc chair
Various designers
The ubiquitous, versatile white injection-moulded plastic seat.

Vilbert chair, 1993
Verner Panton
Made from four painted MDF panels for Ikea, this chair is now highly coveted.

Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen’s new Supreme Class: Japan’s bullet train gets private cabins

Few railway journeys are more thrilling than a trip on the high-speed Tokaido Shinkansen as it heads out of Tokyo Station and hurtles towards the cities of Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka, passing the tea gardens of Shizuoka and offering a epic view of Mount Fuji along the way. Despite the service’s peerless punctuality and impeccable cleanliness, however, luxury has never been a part of the equation – seats have been in either perfectly adequate standard coaches or in the more spacious Green Car – until now. JR Central has just introduced a new concept: Supreme Class. Its initial roll-out in October ushered in a first for the route – private cabins for one or two people.

Monocle booked a seat in a single cabin and took the trip from Tokyo to Nagoya on the sunniest of mornings. A quick swipe of a QR code and the door slides open to reveal a warm, woody cocoon with two windows. Bags can be tucked into a niche next to the seat; jackets can be draped from a hanger.

The control board is a tablet that puts the passenger in charge of the seat angle, the airflow and lighting (are we in the mood for “business”, “relax” or “night” illumination?). The tablet is also used for accessing the on-board drink and snack menu, calling an attendant or following a live map as the train makes its way across Japan. This cabin also comes with limitless fast wi-fi.

As we settle into the spacious seat (heated if required), we’re not quite ready for a deep recline just yet. First up, we order the complimentary welcome drink – at 07.30 it seems a little early for a highball or a slug of shochu, so we choose a Colombian Geisha coffee. The doorbell rings and a smartly attired attendant appears, holding a tray with the coffee and a slice of baumkuchen sponge cake made with premium-grade green tea from Uji, near Kyoto. As the train snakes away from the urban sprawl, the landscape opens up to reveal a patchwork of villages and manicured tea farms. Before long, we spot Mount Fuji, perfectly visible today and completely snow-less.

What music should accompany this stirring view? Ryo Fukui’s 1976 classic jazz album, Scenery, seems appropriate. Bluetooth speakers embedded in the headrest can be paired with any device. The sound is pristine – Supreme Class cabins make use of a new, patented system called PSZ (Personalised Sound Zone), designed to ensure that your music doesn’t leak beyond your seat and disturb other passengers. This crisp audio system works well for films too. There are no meals on board, so travel as the Japanese do and pick up a bento box before departure.

Supreme Class services operate all the way to Fukuoka’s Hakata Station in Kyushu and next year will expand to include semi-private hardshell seats that can rotate to face each other. What a way to see Japan. JR Central’s president, Shunsuke Niwa, said that the company was motivated to think more about customer experience after coronavirus hit, when passenger numbers dropped. “Seeing the many empty seats on trains during the pandemic, I began to wonder, ‘The convenience and safety we have built up until now are undoubtedly good, but is this really enough?’” he said. “I had a feeling that we needed to think outside the box.”

We pull into Nagoya and emerge from the hush of the private cabin into the throng of the station platform. Privacy comes at a price but it’s clear that many are willing to pay for it. There’s a lot to like about this new service – especially the idea that “luxury” doesn’t need to come with a load of pointless amenities and add-ons. Supreme Class has an appealing simplicity. It’s an acknowledgment that, in this crowded, overstimulated world, solitude can be the true luxury.
railway.jr-central.co.jp