Editor’s letter: Andrew Tuck on what goes in to making Monocle

Many journalists reach a fork in the road where they have to decide whether to press on as a reporter or to start along the route of becoming an editor. (As you know, a fork has more than two prongs and there is another option: to just get the hell out of this ever-changing, always demanding profession.) Long ago I chose the editor route but with a nice side order of reporting whenever it made sense. For this month’s issue, for example, I dispatched myself to the Mipim property trade fair in Cannes. Early on in my career I saw how much fun and influence editors had and also how the good ones both played to their strengths and acknowledged their own weaknesses. There’s nothing worse than an editor who always thinks that they are the best person for any reporting mission: assigning is the watchword.

As in most businesses, there’s a clear hierarchy at magazines, Monocle included. While Tyler is clearly the admiral of the fleet, my fancy position as editor in chief comes, at least, with some imaginary epaulettes and a jaunty hat. But when we are putting together an issue, it’s all about working as a team, listening to different perspectives, commissioning the best journalists and photographers, writing and rewriting headlines and fine-tuning the pace and rhythm of the magazine.

To be a part of all of these decisions is why someone chooses to be an editor. Of course, Matt, our photography director, knows more about his domain than I do but, after years spent working together, he’ll hear me out if I think that the “select” from a shoot needs to change. Lewis, our rarely riled chief sub editor, will let me amend headlines and help nudge a story one way or the other in a final edit – though I would never do battle with him on rules of grammar. As we approach the deadline for sending an issue to press, hundreds of small choices are made at pace and hopefully we steer everything to a good place.

Then, on the day that the magazine heads to the printers, editors and the leads in the commercial team gather for what we call “the flip”. On a large TV screen, we get to see a digital version of how the magazine will look with the ads now in place. It’s a final chance to check whether there are any strange adjacencies – whether an image on an advert too closely matches the one on the editorial page that it’s next to. And then it’s over to the production team and the editors have to sit back (or, rather, start another issue). After about 10 days, we get the first boxes from the printers and discover whether our ideas, decisions and conversations have delivered what we hoped for.

In this issue you’ll find our Design Awards, organised by that section’s editor (and committed writer), Nic Monisse. There’s an interview with Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam, commissioned by our foreign editor, Alexis Self, that dives into debates about legalising drugs, sex work and over-tourism. There’s also a look at the future of the grocery shop, co-ordinated and corralled by executive editor Christopher Lord. Our fashion director, Natalie Theodosi, has commissioned a feature that looks at why couture houses are heading to the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai. And there’s an epic Expo that seems to have involved just about everyone, looking at places of contemplation and their role in these harried times.

All are the outcome of numerous editorial meetings, story-list finessing by Josh, art direction by Rich and a-second-to-decide moments at the printers by Jackie. It’s the work of a group of people who see in magazines the chance to tell a story, to find the harmony between words and pictures, and to engage, entertain and inform you, our reader.

The Monocle Design Awards 2025: All 50 winners

Best armchair
Flair O’ Maxi by B&B Italia
Italy

The Flair O’ Maxi is a new iteration of B&B Italia’s 2021 Flair O’ chair – and the rightful winner of our best armchair award. We love it for its simplicity: its stately plinth and swivel combined with comfortable padding. “The key idea for this particular form was ‘lounging’,” Monica Armani, the chair’s designer, tells Monocle. “But that’s a very broad notion. Last year, suddenly inspired by Italian dresses from the 1960s, I decided to change the proportions of the seat.” 
bebitalia.com

Best bar
Bar Vitrine by Frama
Denmark

Designed and run by furniture brand Frama, and with a menu devised by a former Noma chef, Bar Vitrine occupies a 1960s-era brutalist building. “We loved the space’s uniqueness,” says Frama founder Niels Strøyer Christophersen. “We wanted it to feel warm, like entering someone’s home or kitchen.” Dark and light wood interiors balance the exterior’s metal and stone. A communal birch table is at the bar’s centre, while tables along the windows are complemented by Frama’s 01 chairs. 
barvitrine.dk; framacph.com 

Best portable light
Snowman 15 Portable by ILKW
South Korea

The Snowman15 Portable marks South Korean lighting brand ILKW’s wireless debut. This design features a polycarbonate resin shade, giving it a balloon-like, join-free silhouette. Kwon Sunman, creative director of ILKW, says he developed the portable light for adaptable and outdoor use. “The body, shade and integrated led, which is capable of producing a wide range of colour temperatures, all come together,” he says. The lamp not only replicates natural light but can evoke different atmospheres according to its owner’s mood. 
ilkwdesign.com 

Best in the kitchen
Expressive series oven by Gaggenau
Germany

German home-appliances manufacturer Gaggenau’s latest is a sleek oven from the Expressive Series. “The kitchen is now often part of the living room,” says Gaggenau industrial designer Alexander Stuhler. “That means you might have a view of it from your sofa. So it’s important to design appliances that you want to look at.” Here, that means a simplified user interface, smooth joints and a floating control ring – a combination that lets you show off your cooking skills and your taste.  
gaggenau.com

Best for versatility 
Studie chair by Fermob 
France

Fermob’s versatile oak-and-metal Studie chair is the perfect stackable number. It was created by French designer Tristan Lohner as a seat that’s fit for the dining room but just as easily used in other situations. “When I pick up a pencil, I aim to get closer to the concept of service,” says Lohner. The concept of service is wonderfully broad. We can see this chair in a French bistro, an auditorium or piled up five-high after a party. 
bebitalia.com

Best bookshop 
Good Company Bookshop 
Portugal

Good Company Books is a newcomer to Lisbon’s bookshop scene, focusing on English-language titles and serving coffee, baked goods and wine. “We missed the kind of space where you can sit down, read a book, work or meet a friend over coffee,” says American-born Samuel Miller, who opened the bookshop last November with his Brazilian partner, Giovanna Centeno.
goodcompanybooks.com 

Best train fit-out 
TGV InOui by Nendo and Arep 
France

French state-owned rail service SNCF’s soon-to-launch TGV InOui trains have a new look, courtesy of France’s Arep and Japan’s Nendo. This is principal Oki Sato’s first transportation design and it features curved surfaces, a modular layout, warm lighting and a muted palette – its understated elegance a welcome departure from other trains’ utilitarian monotony. Our favourite detail? The lemon-yellow lamp from TGV’s prior design remains, but with a bulbous shade typical of Nendo’s playful style.
sncf-voyageurs.com 

Best camera 
Sigma BF 
Japan

For its combination of austere beauty, technical prowess and ease of use, we salute the Sigma BF, a digital camera from the iconic Japanese lens maker. Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki had a very specific aim in mind: a return to the beginnings of photography, when a camera was no more than a lens and a black box. “For a lens manufacturer like us, the lens is the true star,” says Yamaki. “We felt that the camera body should be as simple as possible, much like the camera obscura.”
sigma-global.com 

Best hospitality fit-out 
Finlandia Hall by Fyra 
Finland

Though a central part of Helsinki’s cityscape, Alvar Aalto’s 1971 Finlandia Hall always felt remote to the city’s residents, who knew it only as a conference centre – until now. Finnish design studio Fyra has opened it up to the public with a new bistro, café and shop. The bistro features original Aalto chairs and lighting, complemented by marble tables and an oak bar. The café and shop are bathed in natural light. “When you design for a protected building – and an Aalto one, no less – you’re a custodian of heritage,” says Eva-Marie Eriksson, Fyra’s co-founder. “But this building isn’t a museum. Ensuring that it’s used is the best way of honouring Aalto’s legacy.”
fyra.fi 

Best retail installation 
‘Je t’aime comme un chien’ by Le Bon Marché 
France

Le Bon Marché’s retail installation “Je t’aime comme un chien” was a love letter to dogs of all shapes and sizes. The pedigreed Paris department store was given a fetching makeover recently, featuring cutouts of hounds, mastiffs, retrievers and poodles gazing longingly towards the treats on offer. The commercial team unleashed its creativity, assembling an impressive assortment of items for dogs and their owners from more than 200 brands. These ranged from Barbour raincoats to a poodle-motif necktie from Cinabre. “It was the exhibition that generated the most enthusiasm among both our staff and our customers,” says Elodie Abrial, Le Bon Marché’s commercial director.
lebonmarche.com 

Best in production 
Kasthall 
Sweden

Founded in 1889 in Kinna, a historic textile hub in southern Sweden, Kasthall continues to operate from the same factory and design studio where skilled artisans and designers bring every rug to life.“Our factory in Kinna is the heart of our brand,” says CEO Mirkku Kullberg. “The artisanal pride and generational expertise in our team define us. Without them, we would lose not just our legacy but our identity.” 
kasthall.com 

Best retail addition 
Alaïa’s London café and bookshop 
UK

A new café and bookshop on the top floor of French fashion house Alaïa’s London flagship is a welcome development in the retail landscape. An aluminium table occupies the centre of the café, which serves flat whites and matcha lattes with pastries from London bakery Violet. The bookshop is curated by the team behind Claire de Rouen, a popular east London spot for titles on art, photography and fashion.
maison-alaia.com 

Best playground 
Yirran muru playspace 
Australia

When Shellharbour’s town council planned an educational space to recount the local Dharawal Aboriginal people’s history, they tapped landscape architect Fiona Robbé for a playground design. “You should experience a good playground for its own sake but a deeper didactic meaning is there if you want it,” says Robbé of the project, whose design functions as a miniature map of the Dharawal people’s region. Blue zones represent the nearby ocean and lake, sandpits symbolise the beach and coast, and a large stone semicircle represents the Illawara escarpment.
architectsofarcadia.com.au 

Most democratic design 
Mofalla Easy chair by Ikea 
Sweden

Swedish furniture company Ikea has built an archive of accessible, democratic design since 1943 – and from this, back by popular demand, is the Mofalla chair. First made to the design of Denmark’s Niels Gammelgaard in 1978, this foldable number features a simple, appealing combination of canvas and chrome.“It’s also very practical,” says Karin Gustavsson, the project’s creative lead. “I believe that there’s always a need for lightweight, easy-to-use furniture for extra seating.” And thanks to Ikea, this example is available to everyone.
ikea.com 

Best branding
27/4 by Yorgo & Co
France

Graphic designer Yorgo Tloupas’s branding work on entrepreneur Paul Dupuy’s 27/4 building in Paris creates a sense of cohesion across the drinking-and-dining hub’s three floors. Tloupas developed bespoke signage and typography for everything including customised fire-safety notices and alcohol-licence information. “The overall effect works on a subconscious level,” says Tloupas. This impressive attention to detail sets a benchmark.
27quatre.com; yorgo.co

Best artistic installation
‘On Weaving’ pavilion
Saudi Arabia

“It’s a given that places of worship are spiritual and ethereal,” says Charles Kettaneh, co-founder of East Architecture, referring to the practice’s modular musalla – an open area used for prayer in Islam. Titled “On Weaving”, it’s an exploration of the idea of transience, adds Kettaneh’s fellow co-founder, Nicolas Fayad. “Musallas have never been studied as architectural typologies,” he says.
eastarchitecture.net; akt-uk.com

Best incubator
UAE Designer Exhibition
UAE

Cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai have long imported star architects and designers from across the globe for major works. But the UAE Designer Exhibition, which took place during last November’s Dubai Design Week, is shifting the narrative. “We want people to know that design’s potential here is quite large,” says Omar Al Gurg (pictured), who curated the most recent exhibition, spotlighting 30 local talents. About 22,500 visitors saw the show, helping to change the Gulf’s design narrative. 
dubaidesignweek.ae

Best hi-fi
RA03 by Rudy Audio
Denmark

Monocle spotted Rudy Audio when it debuted at last year’s 3 Days of Design festival in Copenhagen: we were taken by its gorgeous speakers, amps and turntables with chiselled surfacing and exquisite joinery. A collaboration between Søren Rose Studio, furniture maker Københavns Møbelsnedkeri and a Danish technician, this hi-fi features speakers hand-made in Denmark by Scan-speak. “We went the road less travelled,” says Søren Rose, the founder of his eponymous studio.
rudyaudio.com; sorenrose.com

Lifetime achievement
Marva Griffin
Italy

For more than 25 years, Venezuelan-born, Milan-based curator Marva Griffin has been helping to develop design talent from across the globe. In 1999 she founded Salone Satellite, an exhibition within Milan’s Salone del Mobile trade show that spotlights projects by young practitioners under the age of 35. It has nurtured the careers of designers such as Cristina Celestino, Sebastian Herkner and Oki Sato – an on-going achievement that’s worthy of celebration. 

Best bedframe
MC-1 by ReFramed
Denmark

It pays to be flexible in the bedroom. Copenhagen-based practice ReFramed’s sleek and modern MC-1 bedframe is a case in point. Created in collaboration with Swiss industrial designer Michel Charlot, it features a chunky steel frame that holds the mattress and four simple cylindrical legs. There are two powder-coated finish options (ivory or moss green) and sprung slats that are supportive and remain flexible for added comfort. 
reframedbrand.com

Most playful design
Aço collection by Ghome
Portugal

“I don’t think about products but rather what they can do to the spaces that they inhabit,” says Gonçalo Prudêncio, founder of Portuguese design firm Ghome. Case in point: Aço, which exudes playfulness through bold shapes and colours.
ghome.pt

Residential architect of the year
Manuel Cervantes
Mexico

It’s appropriate that we’re meeting Manuel Cervantes, our residential architect of the year (though his practice encompasses much more), in his studio. “I live next door, so it’s an extension of my home,” says Cervantes. His residence and studio is filled with books, artwork and objects that “shape the way that we discuss projects”, says the architect. “It’s a space for thinking and connection, not just work. Sometimes it’s easier to communicate an idea with a painting or a material sample than through a drawing.”

Best retail display
Tojiro Knife Gallery
Japan

At Tojiro Knife Gallery in Osaka, every detail is a celebration of traditional Japanese craft. In particular, the design riffs on yoroi-bari cladding, a method of construction inspired by samurai armour that involves weaving metal plates with silk or leather cords. The knives are lined up on magnetic shelves, held up by clever notches. “If a product is exceptional, the space must be equally refined,” says the shop’s designer, Katata Yoshihito.
tojiro-japan.com

Best exhibition design
Gallery of the Kings
Italy

Museums of ancient history can sometimes feel a little dusty and stale. That’s why the bold and unconventional Gallery of the Kings at Turin’s Museo Egizio caught our eye. David Gianotten and Andreas Karavanas – Partner and Project Architect, respectively, at the Dutch architecture firm OMA – designed the layout in collaboration with Andrea Tabocchini Architecture. “These statues hold a lot of importance and we didn’t want to keep them in the dark,” says Gianotten.
oma.com; andreatabocchini.com

Best glassware
Fit by Aldo Bakker for J Hill’s Standard
Ireland

Dutch designer Aldo Bakker’s on-going collaboration with J Hill’s Standard, an Irish maker of contemporary cut crystal, is underpinned by their shared admiration for form and the use of glass. Their cup-and-carafe combination, named Fit, can be stacked and comes in three colours: grey, clear and opaque ochre. “We want to re-establish the glass industry in Ireland,” says Anike Tyrrell, the founder of J Hill’s Standard. “We’re not interested in revisiting what’s already been done a thousand times.”
jhillsstandard.com; aldobakker.com 

Best gadget
TP-7 field recorder by Teenage Engineering
Sweden

Teenage Engineering’s palm-sized TP-7 audio recorder has us wondering how we ever went without it. Its centrepiece is a motorised “tape reel” that allows you to pause recordings, control the menu navigation and more. This highly intuitive device is making waves.
teenage.engineering

Best project evolution 
Rita Lee Park by Ecomimesis 
Brazil

All too often the Olympic Games leave host cities an urban legacy of white elephants. Not so in western Rio de Janeiro, where the landscape architects at Ecomimesis Soluções Ecológicas transformed the grey pedestrian thoroughfare that was the Olympic Way into a fun and colourful park named after the late Brazilian queen of rock, Rita Lee.  
ecomimesis.com.br 

Best storage solution 
Util 
Portugal

When it comes to steel storage solutions, options tend to fall into two extremes – either industrial-grade efficiency or uninspired, budget-friendly office staples. Enter Util, a Portuguese brand striking a balance between functionality and elegance with a thoughtfully curated and design-conscious collection. 
thisisutil.com 

Best design partnership 
Holder Objects 
Chile & Germany

Berlin-based design store and gallery Holder Objects brings new and archival Latin American design to Europe. This exchange stems from the Chilean duo behind it, Trinidad Davanzo and Camilo Palma. “Latin America’s unique geographical position is a bridge between European, indigenous and African influences,” says Davanzo. Eminent talents on the duo’s radar include Venezuelan architect and designer Jorge Suárez-Kilzi and Italian-Uruguayan maker Matteo Fogale.
holder-objects.com 

Best lamp 
Bellhop Glass T by Barber Osgerby for Flos
Italy 

The familiar shape of UK studio Barber Osgerby’s Bellhop Glass T throws a warm, uniform light wherever it sits thanks to its layers of opaline glass. The new iteration of the lamp is also dimmable: when turned down low, the glow it gives is almost ethereal. “I wanted to concentrate on a light that can act as a central focal point in a space, that enhances an environment rather than just illuminating it,” says Osgerby.
flos.com 

Curator to watch 
Zanele Kumalo 
South Africa 

Zanele Kumalo is an invaluable member of South Africa’s design scene, platforming the work of local creatives through her work as curator of Design Week South Africa – a new fair that took place for the first time last October across Johannesburg and Cape Town. “What drives me is helping young creatives find a firmer footing in places where they haven’t had access,” she says. “There’s such a wealth of talent in this country.” 

Design Week South Africa’s strength lies in Kumalo’s curation that includes emerging talent as well as bigger players. Although in its early days, the fair has already garnered international attention – and it has also fostered domestic pride.
designweeksouthafrica.com

Best sports facility 
Gerland Aquatic and Sports Centre 
France

When Lyon-based 4_32 Architecte was tasked with updating a 1930s outdoor pool in their hometown’s Gerland sport complex, the architecture firm was guided by a desire to enhance the experience of sport for people of all abilities and ages. 
The scope of the project involved retaining the 10-metre diving tower and the 33-metre pool as well as building offices and training facilities for the city’s professional rugby club. “What made this project interesting is that we needed to accommodate a wide spectrum of people, from young swimmers to high-profile athletes, all in one place,” says the practice’s co-founder Claire Bertrand. “The result aligns with the vision of Tony Garnier, the site’s original architect, who believed sport was part of a healthy lifestyle and should be accessible to all.” 
432.archi 

Best first-class cabin 
La Première by Air France 
France

When Air France unveiled its new first-class cabin, La Première, in March, expectations were sky high. They were met. We’re most impressed by the airline’s ability to design a new seating solution that feels spacious. The muted tones, red accents and curtains remain but a full 3.5 sq m of space – 25 per cent more than before – has been added. “It’s very elegant and fits the brand,” says Benjamin Smith, Air France-KLM’s CEO. “We are quite confident that we can remain at the top of the European space in first class.” Air France spent three years refining the suite, which features a chaise longue that can transform into a two-metre-long bed. La Première’s new cabins take flight from Paris to New York this spring.
airfrance.com 

Best civic building 
Siège du Conseil de la Concurrence 
Morocco 

Reflecting centuries-old heritage in the design of a new building is a tough brief. But Rabat-based Prism Architectes have found a way to meld traditional details with contemporary requirements in its design of new headquarters for Morocco’s Conseil de la Concurrence, an institution that aims to ensure transparency in the country’s economic relations. 

Key architectural features include a méchouar (a central area inspired by traditional pathways), courtyards and shading devices. These features are enhanced by the use of stone, wood and intricate metalwork that reference Morocco’s traditional vernacular. 
prismarchitectes.com 

Best barbecue 
Phil by Ethimo 
Italy

Italian design brand Ethimo and Maltese-born designer Gordon Guillaumier’s concept for an outdoor kitchen just made your next summer barbecue significantly better. Part of the Phil collection, which includes a sink and induction-hob option, this sizeable, cylindrical grill-on-wheels is available in an olive green or a sepia black, with pleasing teak details. We think that Phil is the perfect summer party guest – free enough to go where the evening takes him but decorous enough to know exactly what is needed and when. Phil has us longing for a hot day when we can sizzle some steaks and throw back an ice-cold spritz. This is outdoor design at its best: uncomplicated, efficient and tailored to improving people’s lives. Bring on the summer. 
ethimo.com 

Best material innovation 
Sungai Design 
Indonesia

Since Gary Bencheghib and his siblings co-founded the river clean-up nonprofit Sungai Watch in Bali in 2020, they have collected more than 2,000,000kg of plastic waste. Rather than sending it to landfill, they have been transforming it into chairs. 

The manufacturing process involves cleaning each plastic bag and melting them into uniform sheets that can then be sliced and layered to build furniture. “We launched a product that was 100 per cent made from recycled plastic, to carry as much weight as possible,” says Bencheghib. “It’s a symbol of how much plastic we’re collecting from rivers.” 
sungaidesign.com 

Best community initiative 
Casa Ria by David Chipperfield Architects 
Spain

Chipperfield’s Fundación Ria, a contribution to his adopted city of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, has a new headquarters in what was once a sanatorium. Casa Ria is intended for use by the non-profit to contribute to sustainability initiatives and quality of life in Galicia. It’s also a base for David Chipperfield Architects Santiago.
fundacionria.org 

Best emergency facility 
Jircany Fire Station by SOA Architekti 
Czechia 

Czech studio soa Architekti’s redesign of Jircany Fire Station has turned what could have been an isolated storage space for vehicles and hoses into a place where essential workers and the community overlap. Located in Psáry, a town that’s a 30-minute drive south of Prague, it’s a luminous polycarbonate-façade structure. 
s-o-a.cz 

Emerging designer 
Minjae Kim  
South Korea & USA 

Minjae Kim works across interiors, furniture, sculpture and art, in Seoul and New York. His work straddles the line between the practical and the artistic. 

“I favour objects that reveal the layers of their creation, permitting one to discern their formation, in contrast to those flawless products that merely inspire admiration,” he says. “I contend that the presence of imperfections, rather than a pristine finish, cultivates an aura of ‘breathing space’.” 
minjae.kim 

Best imprint 
Park Books 
Switzerland 

Zürich-based architecture and design imprint Park Books makes publications that are both sources of knowledge and beautiful objects. “Inspired by Swiss craftsmanship, we pay close attention to the materiality of every book while engaging with the topical issues of design,” says Julie Cirelli, its Stockholm-based director. 

Established in 2012 as an affiliate of Scheidegger & Spiess, Park encourages an exchange of ideas between authors, architects and readers that continues long after the publication date. 
park-books.com 

Graduate to watch
Changhwi Kim 
South Korea 

Driven by empathy and an insatiable curiosity, Changhwi Kim creates products that go well beyond what is expected. Fresh from design school, Kim is a nuanced observer of people and everyday objects, and he aspires to build a better, more playful world. We meet him to discuss his graduation project, “Ed!t”, in his collaborative workspace, Creative Group 297. 

Best for seniors
Little Tokyo Towers by OWIU 
USA

Home to 301 one-bedroom apartments for seniors, Little Tokyo Towers in Los Angeles shows how assisted living spaces can be uplifting. Design studio OWIU renovated communal areas, making simple adjustments, such as custom seating, homely lighting and space-defining shoji screens. 
owiu-design.com 

Best modernisation  
Astep Model 262 
Denmark

According to Alessandro Sarfatti, the third-generation owner of Danish-Italian design company Astep, his grandfather Gino was a “purist”. Sarfatti is modernising his family firm’s mid-century designs, including Gino’s Model 262, a striking light fixture in which the light bulb sits cradled in the curve of a sleek aluminium disc. Originally created in 1971, the design has been updated to meet 21st-century needs and conform to Astep’s exacting standards as a certified B Corp. It’s chic, functional and energy-efficient – and shows that the past can be both celebrated and modernised. 
astep.design 

Best new hotel 
Stadthotel Kleiner Löwe 
Austria 

A celebrated Swiss practice, Bregenzerwälder craftsmen and a couple seeking a lifelong investment came together to convert a 17th-century brewery into the Stadthotel Kleiner Löwe, an elegant eight-room guesthouse. Lisa Rümmele and her partner, Johannes Glatz, convinced Herzog & de Meuron to take on the renovation. The building’s centuries-old façade has been preserved but a modern annexe has been added on top. It’s a fine hospitality addition to the Austrian stretch of Lake Constance. 
kleinerloewe.at; herzogdemeuron.com 

Best public space 
Pier 22 by Mostlikely Architecture  
Austria

Vienna’s Danube Island is an artificial stretch of land created in the 1970s and 1980s as a flood protection measure. “When they built it, they didn’t have any idea of what else it should be,” says Mark Neuner, the founder of Viennese architecture firm Mostlikely. Last year the practice completed the first phase of its Pier 22 project on the island. Facing Vienna’s tallest building, the DC Tower 1, it’s the recreation space that the city has long needed, despite its strong tradition of bathing beaches and swimming pools. 
mostlikely.at 

Best for contemplation 
Raj Sabhagruh 
India 

The Raj Sabhagruh in Gujarat is a meditation complex designed by Serie Architects, a firm based in Mumbai, Singapore and London. Built for Jains, the vast construction is dedicated to providing the optimal conditions for samayika, one of Jainism’s key tenets, meaning the pursuit of spirituality through 48 minutes of concentrated silence. 
serie.co.uk 

Civic architect of the year 
Jeanne Gang 
USA

Jeanne Gang established Studio Gang in 1997 and has since become renowned for spaces that connect people, their communities and the environment. “Our core principles come through in how we approach every project, starting with what’s already there,” says Gang, who recently expanded the California College of the Arts. “That doesn’t just mean context in a traditional sense. It also means people, geology, history or existing buildings. With the Verde tower in San Francisco, for instance, we considered how the building contributes to the public realm. If a place is designed well, people will want to be there.” 
studiogang.com 

Best cutlery 
Concorde by Christofle 
France 

The Place de la Concorde in Paris is symbolic of French fraternity. So it’s a fitting source of inspiration for Christofle’s well-established Concorde silverware collections, designed for use at parties. Housed in a white-oak-and-steel case, the cutlery draws deeply from the brand’s heritage. A milleraies pattern lining the utensils’ handles provides a contrast between gloss and matte finishes. These knives, forks and spoons are a pleasure to hold.
christofle.com 

Best for coffee 
Linea Micra by La Marzocco 
Italy

This compact version of La Marzocco’s barista-approved coffee machines allows you to make café-level flat whites at home. “The Linea Micra is designed to offer the same performance as our commercial machines, scaled for home use,” says Stefano Della Pietra, La Marzocco’s head designer. The coffee machine’s clean-lined aesthetic reflects the manufacturer’s Florentine roots, particularly the architectural legacy of the Renaissance – making the Linea Micra an elegant and eye-catching addition to your kitchen countertop. 
lamarzocco.com 

Best renovation 
Lunetta by Acme 
Australia 

With its panoramic views of Canberra, the 12-sided restaurant building at 60 Red Hill Drive has been a city landmark since its completion in 1963. Originally designed by Czech architect Miles Jakl, it was reimagined in 1981 by Italian-born Enrico Taglietti, who added futuristic convex bay windows. Now, after three years of closure, the building has reopened as the home of two dining spots: Lunetta and Lunetta Trattoria. 
lunetta.au; acme-co.com.au 

What the winners receive 

The award by Harry Thaler 
Merano 

Harry Thaler has crafted the trophy for the Monocle Design Awards since its debut in 2021, working with the Tscherms-based workshop of Martin Klotz to refine its curved timber form. For the 2025 iteration, Thaler opted for plywood as the primary material, reflecting human ingenuity; the laminating of several layers of timber veneer make a product that is lighter than solid wood. The trophy, which can be used as a paperweight, is a testament to thoughtful design that is celebrated by these awards, which this year are supported by Cupra Design House. 

An inside look at the process behind choosing Monocle’s Design Awards

Another year, another iteration of the Monocle Design Awards, in which we celebrate the best in the sector over the past 12 months. While the full report can be viewed here (or in the pages of the magazine), this column offers a moment to reflect on the key themes that our team observed during our prize reporting. 

1.
Focus on France
This year, France has picked up a record seven of the 50 awards. It’s a testament to the high value that the country places on impeccable design. My suspicion is that this comes from the fact it still prizes highly specialised production, rooted in the tradition of the atelier.

2.
Look back in wonder
Many brands are showing that the past can be a springboard for innovation. The likes of Ikea, Flos and independent outfit Astep have refreshed works that have enjoyed enduring success in previous decades, adding contemporary modifications to bring them up to speed for modern life.

3.
Leaders matter
Good design can only make a difference if there are people to champion it. It’s why we’re celebrating leaders such as Marva Griffin, who has nurtured generations of talent through Salone Satellite, and Zanele Kumalo, whose recently launched Design Week South Africa has elevated the status of the discipline in the country.

4.
Invest in the little things
We often talk about designers overseeing the creation of everything “from the spoon to the city”. It’s the former that I want to spotlight here. Investing in the small things can have an outsized effect. Take, for example, Christofle’s Concorde cutlery set. Holding a well-made knife and fork can enhance a meal, which in turn can elevate an evening – and your overall sense of wellbeing too.

5.
Let there be light
We have a record number of lights featured in this year’s edition. We cover everything from wall-mounted sconces to lamps and more. Why? Well, there are few objects whose output can have such an immediate effect on our lives. Light affects our health, energy levels and mood. You might as well invest in a good one.

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Monocle’s rundown of 5 grocery stores reinventing food retail

Grocery shopping often feels like a chore. But across the globe, smart retailers are showing that it can offer far more than just loud packaging, harsh strip lighting and busy, unappealing displays. Here, Monocle meets a few entrepreneurs who are going the extra mile to entice and excite their customers, whether by offering fresh, locally sourced products or by scouring the world for the best brands and suppliers. Some of these retailers are neighbourhood institutions, while others service a smaller niche. The common thread, however, is an understanding of food’s power to nourish communities as well as individuals. Many people now rely on delivery apps, while the big supermarket chains seem to be growing increasingly impersonal. The following businesses are reminders that there’s value in creating more meaningful, intimate retail experiences.

1.
The pleasure emporium
Lighting the way
Epic, France

When shoppers enter French supermarket chain Epic’s flagship shop in Paris, they are greeted by the sight of a huge chandelier. Assembled from 4,000 clear glass jars, it casts a warm glow over a bounty of dried fruits and nuts. “We were aiming for a ‘wow’ effect,” says Franck Hadjez (pictured), Epic’s co-founder and principal buyer. “But we also wanted it to draw customers in towards the back of the shop.” Deep within Epic is a section dedicated to what Hadjez calls “pleasure groceries” – an aisle offering more than 50 kinds of hot sauce, an alcove of olive oils from across the Mediterranean and about half a dozen beautifully illuminated sections dedicated to regional delicacies from across the globe. The shop stocks a wide selection of cheeses rarely found in other French supermarkets too, including a Corsican soft variety with a coating of wildflower petals.

Hadjez, his brother Jordan and cousin Steve are second-generation grocers. All three began their careers elsewhere but ultimately joined what Hadjez describes as the “more human-centric” family business. They had been franchisees of UK multinational chain Marks and Spencer for eight years; its outposts included a location in the heart of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood. In the years following Brexit, Marks and Spencer’s French outposts began to close, forcing the Hadjez clan to decide what they wanted to do with their prized 6th-arrondissement location.

The result was Epic’s first shop, for which Hadjez partnered with French retailer Monoprix to sell everyday essentials, complemented by a vast selection of delights sourced directly from small producers. These range from Emirati camel-milk chocolate to Monegasque gin. The business model might be unorthodox but it has allowed Epic to grow. “I can offer my premium products at a lower price than a fine-foods grocery shop, where margins are higher because they’re all it sells,” says Hadjez. Epic takes its name from the word “epicurean” – a nod to the pleasure-seeking disciples of Greek philosopher Epicurus – but the moniker also refers to the traditional French épicerie.

The success of the shop in Saint-Germain-des-Prés (its revenue in 2024 was about €8m) emboldened the Hadjez family to transform its Galeries Gourmandes outpost – another of its historic locations, adjacent to Paris’s wealthy western suburbs – into the new Epic flagship. This shop opened in October 2024. “We are looking at opportunities in other French cities,” says Hadjez. “We’re even considering franchising Epic elsewhere in Europe.”
epic-paris.com

Our picks from Epic’s shelves

1.
Al Nassma Camel Milk Chocolate
A creamy treat from the uae-based producer.

2.
Las Chachitas
Mexican-style salsa made in the south of France.

3.
Noam
A light lager from a young brewery in Munich.

4.
Oliu Ottavi
Olive oil from Corsican groves.

5.
Porthos sardines
Canned fish from Portugal.

2.
The new normal
Going with the flow
LoSurdo’s, Australia

LoSurdo’s has been trading fruits and vegetables in Sydney for two generations. Originally founded in 1957 in Double Bay, the grocers moved to a suburban mall called Chatswood Chase on the other side of the Harbour Bridge in 1981. The business later relocated again and opened outposts in Lane Cove, Northbridge, Macquarie Park and North Sydney.

Earlier this year, LoSurdo’s returned to its roots by opening a vast flagship shop in Chatswood Chase, featuring a dazzling array of fresh produce from across Australasia, as well as a delicatessen, a fishmonger and a section for dry goods. It doesn’t quite reinvent the business but it’s a testament to the power of good design.

“I first worked with co-founder Domenic LoSurdo in the 1990s on the original shop here,” says Mark Landini, the founder of Landini Associates, which worked on every facet of the new shop, from the signage to the uniforms. “This has been a 32-year-long relationship. Domenic had seen a florist that I had designed in this shopping centre. I had learned that florists spend two hours every morning taking flowers out of the fridge and then two hours at the end of the day packing them back in. So we built the shop so that you closed the doors in the evening and the whole thing became a cool room.”

That kind of thinking was crucial to the design of the new LoSurdo’s in Chatswood. “Consideration of customer flow was key – how a patron moves through the space,” says Landini. A team of six designers worked on the complete experience, encompassing every customer touch point from branding and interior design to lighting and packaging, which makes use of the brand’s signature colours, green and white. “Efficiency was the starting point,” says Landini. “The look of the space was the last part we considered.”

The designer, who was Terence Conran’s creative director at Habitat in the 1990s, applies what he learned in premium retail to his work on grocery shops and supermarkets. His previous clients include Loblaws at Maple Leaf Gardens in Canada and Italy’s Esselunga group. “Esselunga allowed us to reinvent how supermarkets operate,” he says. “They now have the highest turnover per square metre for a supermarket in the world – more than Walmart. No one else has really changed how supermarkets work since they were first invented in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916.” 

After Domenic LoSurdo retired in 2000 his son Rob, who was a commercial pilot by training, took the reins of the family grocery business. In December 2024, however, Rob suddenly passed away and his wife, Summer, took over. 

Monocle spoke to Rob as the finishing touches were being made on the new shop – his sixth collaboration with Landini on a grocery project. “Mark understands balancing the needs of the customer with functionality, including spacious aisles for users’ comfort and space for merchandising,” he said. “It’s a fine balance.”

The new LoSurdo’s outpost was inspired by Peck, a storied institution in Milan, says Landini. “We wanted to create a place that celebrated the love of food in a similar way.” About 85 per cent of the practice’s work is global and a significant proportion of its work comes from purveyors of food that are looking for fresh ideas. “We have become known for reinventing the normal.”
shop.losurdos.com.au; landiniassociates.com

3.
The personal touch
Out of the past
Alma, Denmark

When Danish supermarket chain Irma closed its doors in 2024 after 138 years, there was an outpouring of grief from its loyal customers. But according to Alfred Josefsen (pictured), its CEO from 1999 to 2012, its decline began in 2016 when its buying department was integrated into parent company Co-op’s organisation. “Its selection ended up much the same as the other supermarkets,” he tells Monocle.

Josefsen presided over Irma’s heyday, when customers adored its own-label lines, spacious shops and attentive service. Now he has launched a new brand, Alma Madmarked, whose first shop in Frederiksberg opened in March this year. “We want to attract young people and families who once thought that Irma was unaffordable,” he says.

Products adorned with Irma’s distinctive logo, a girl in a blue dress, were design classics and much-loved souvenirs among Japanese tourists. Alma’s logo – a blue heart – is similarly appealing. Meanwhile, the distinctive design of the brand’s interiors is intended to entice a new generation of shoppers. While meat will still be sold, Alma wants to inspire Danes to adopt a more plant-based diet. It will also avoid ultra-processed foods.

Above all, Alma prioritises customer experience. (There’s not an automated checkout in sight.) And the name? “My grandmother was called Alma,” says Josefsen. “She was born in 1906 and what she would have eaten would have been grown by her family and was probably organic. She inspires me to help people have a better understanding of what they’re eating.”
almamad.dk

4.
The wheeler dealer
On the road again
Migros, Switzerland

With sales of CHF32bn (€33bn), Migros is now one of Switzerland’s largest supermarket chains, with almost 790 outposts across the country – but its story has humble origins. A century ago, Gottlieb Duttweiler turned a fleet of five Ford Model Ts into mobile supermarkets. Families would line up every week, waiting for the Migros bus to arrive. To mark its centenary, the company is reviving its grocery van, which is touring the country this year with 100 of its bestselling own-brand products. 

“Migros has always travelled to the people,” says Philipp Kuonen, the bus tour’s manager. Known as the Merci Bus, it will roam the cantons of Appenzell and Jura, before continuing to Zug, Geneva, St Gallen and Graubünden, handing out each region’s bestselling Migros product to shoppers there as a token of thanks for their loyalty.

The bus revival isn’t just a gimmick. At a time of fierce competition among Swiss supermarkets – with newer brands such as Coop’s Fooby muscling in with new openings in Zürich – Migros needs to stake out its territory. The bus is a way to remind customers in this landmark year that the brand has deep roots in the Swiss countryside, where it sources delicacies from cervelat sausage to emmental cheese. It’s also a signal of the firm’s ambitions for the future. There are 140 new outposts planned over the next five years, as well as a refresh of 230 existing shops.

When Monocle visits the Merci bus on its maiden voyage, shoppers and children wait in line, just as people did in the past. The original narrow vehicles opened up on both sides, revealing shelves holding coffee, rice, sugar, croissants, soap and coconut oil. Duttweiler stipulated that prices should sit somewhere between wholesale and retail, and every product was emblazoned with Migros’s orange M logo – a distinctive brand identity that earned the business the nickname “the Orange Giant”. Migros might have grown bigger than Duttweiler ever imagined but it’s his devotion to domestic produce and fair prices that has kept the show on the road.
migros.ch

5.
The local treasure trove
Spoilt for choice
Annam Gourmet, Vietnam

“We are growing along with the country,” says France-born Eric Merlin, who co-founded Annam Gourmet in Vietnam in 2000 with his wife, Ha. The Merlins oversee 14 supermarkets, 900 staff and an annual turnover of about €46m. The group’s Montclair brand makes everything from sausages to sorbets. Signage at Annam Gourmet shops is in both Vietnamese and English but local customers outnumber expats.

The Merlins met in Hanoi in the 1990s when Eric was working on his travel agency. Ha decided to venture into food retail soon after giving birth to the first of their four daughters. At the time, Vietnam’s GDP per capita was about €370 and there were concerns over
food security. Soon after opening the first shop, Ha was fielding requests from friends and chefs to stock specific products. “Annam Gourmet wasn’t meant to become a chain,” she says. “At first we were bringing in items that we had bought from European supermarkets by hand because we couldn’t get access to wholesale prices.”

Today, Vietnam’s GDP per capita exceeds €3,900 and Annam Gourmet sells plenty of local fruits and vegetables, alongside Bonne Maman jam and Barilla spaghetti, imported into the country by sister business Annam Fine Food. “The quantity of sales and the quality of products are intrinsically linked,” says Eric. “If we didn’t attract a lot of footfall, with people buying the fruits, fish, cheese and meats, they wouldn’t be as fresh and we wouldn’t be able to stock so much.”

In one of Annam Gourmet’s Ho Chi Minh City shops, Eric talks proudly about stocking 17,000 products and points out the high shelves that tower over two young, basket carrying shoppers browsing a cornucopia of wafers, crackers and biscuits. Choice entices people inside and delivers the profit margins that allow the business to price-match everyday essentials. 

Annam Gourmet’s big break came in 2015 when Singaporean property developer Keppel approached the Merlins to open their first full-scale supermarket in the basement of the Saigon Centre, a premium shopping mall. The couple flew to France to recruit a team with retail know-how and spent two years building the supply chain and cold storage infrastructure necessary to operate a delicatessen, a bakery, a butcher and a fishmonger. “I love the idea that sharing something relatively cheap, such as a big, beautiful piece of bread and some good, salty butter, can create a certain lifestyle and a wonderful moment with friends,” says Eric.
annam-gourmet.com

Fertile ground: Lanzarote’s business boom

Lanzarote is known as the “island of 1,000 volcanoes” and its dramatic landscapes are vivid reminders of nature’s power. “Don’t worry – only one of the volcanoes is considered active,” says longtime resident Adrián Nicolás von Boettinger, as he leads Monocle through Lagomar, an architectural marvel built into an old rock quarry. At first glance, Lagomar’s façade barely registers as part of a building. The semi-subterranean structure features rooms, tunnels and terraces; only the balconies, stairs and footbridges, which cut into the rock surface, offer a sense of structure, while looking like beads of icing flowing down the side of an uneven cake.

Lagomar encapsulates how Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, has grabbed the design world’s attention since the 1960s with its idiosyncratic combination of oddity and invention. Its lava-hewn landscapes are arresting spectacles that can help to unlock architects’ imaginations; the inhospitable landscape, however, also prompts sobering civic discussions. The island has long been grappling with questions of how to live within its limitations and make the most of tourism without being overwhelmed.

With his sister, Tatyana, Von Boettinger took over the Lagomar property from their parents, architects from Germany and Uruguay, who bought the cliffside home in a state of disrepair in 1989. “There was so much mystique surrounding the building that they put down a deposit for it without even stepping inside,” says Tatyana, who adds that it was once home to Egyptian film star Omar Sharif.

After a gun-toting squatter was politely paid to leave the premises, the site underwent several years of structural improvements. In 1997 the house finally reopened as an architectural museum; more recently it was renovated as a restaurant, bar and music venue (plans for an artist’s residency are also in the works). It’s a microcosm of the island’s identity crisis: a vision for the future that’s firmly anchored to the past.

Lagomar is unique but in some ways it isn’t alone. Since the 1960s the island has walked a tourism tightrope in order to transform an agrarian society into a modern one, while trying to balance economic and ecological sustainability. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, artist and sculptor César Manrique was the island’s visionary-in-chief and, in effect, its architectural art director. Aghast by the postwar construction boom on neighbouring islands Tenerife and Gran Canaria, Manrique championed an ethos for Lanzarote that honoured the landscape, preserved tradition and resisted harmful development. He also designed scores of the traditionally inspired structures hewn into the island’s almost extra-terrestrial looking rocks.

Manrique’s less-is-more vision often sat uncomfortably with the island’s financial and political ambitions. The tourism sector, in particular, bridled at the idea of being constrained by an artist’s whims. Over the years, many hotels of varying standards were built and entire coastal towns turned into holiday resorts – much to the chagrin of Manrique, who agitated for restraint until his death in 1992.

To some, the artist and sculptor’s message was nuanced and prescient; to others, however, it was plain confusing. The house where he lived between 1968 and 1988, built into a petrified lava field, is now the base of his eponymous foundation. Among its exhibits is a video of Manrique warning about the island’s existential decay and criticising various beachfront hotels, mostly in front of the kind of visitors who stay in such places. It’s unclear whether his fervent approach was persuasive or just made those listening feel unwelcome.

“It’s not tourists that people are tired of,” says restaurateur Georgia Coles. “We love them and live off them. The problem is the tired model of tourism.” Today is the soft-opening of her new venture, La Lapa, and the first-day fluster is palpable. Coles steadies the ship, keeping an eye on the hungry guests in the dining room, while telling Monocle about some of the local tensions in the front bar. “In summer the taps in some of Lanzarote’s towns run dry but then we see hotels’ water supply safeguarded,” she says. “Residents can feel like their concerns are secondary.”

This delicate balance – between local and visitors’ interests, between too many tourists and too few – is on everyone’s lips. “Lanzarote teaches you how to live with very little,” says Zoe Barceló, an art director from Alicante who started a new life here with his partner, Geo Giner, a fashion designer from Barcelona. They tell us about their previous work lives, in which demanding deadlines meant more than 10 hours of screen time a day. “This is sort of a pre-retirement,” says Giner with a grin, gesturing at his surroundings. Looking for a rental property, the couple found a run-down toolshed and perrera (a house for hunting dogs). They have transformed both into an impressively appointed modern home and studio.

“We have seen more people coming to the island looking for peace, sometimes silence,” says Giner. But life didn’t stay quiet for long for the pair, whose new landscape-inspired clothing brand, Latitud Fuego, taps into the surf culture that’s thriving in coastal towns such as Caleta de Famara. Selling pieces sourced mainly from Portugal but embroidered by a Lanzarote-based artist, they started with 200 garments, which quickly sold out. The couple also juggle consulting work with other small businesses, helping to upgrade menus, signage and merchandise. “Manrique remains an inspiration,” says Barceló. “His legacy gives the island a conscience.”

For those working Lanzarote’s crater-strewn land, Manrique-style ideas of minimal intervention are more than just theoretical, given how difficult it is to cultivate crops here. Self-taught winemakers Eamon López O’Rourke and Laura Fábregas Camacho are the married couple behind a winery called Cohombrillo. The 13-hectare site hosts bi-weekly tastings in a garage. “Our techniques help us to make do with very little,” says O’Rourke. “We try to stay attuned to the limitations and wisdom of the land. Lately, we have been getting a lot of visitors from Japan who are curious about how we cultivate the volcanic soil.” He points to a pallet loaded with 300 bottles earmarked for export to Asia, underlining what that means for business.

María José Alcántara Palop is the director of MIAC, a fort turned-modern art museum, as well as of Lanzarote’s biennale. The current edition, which runs until 30 June, features excursions around volcanoes that morph into panel discussions and performances staged inside “teleclubs” – rural bars known for bringing the first televisions to the island’s remote villages. “Lanzarote needs more artists and more spaces – to be more courageous and insistent, even in the face of resistance from a bureaucracy that’s stuck in its ways,” says Palop, who worked with Manrique when he was younger. “He taught us to be bold, to honour the island’s singularity. He envisioned Lanzarote as a beacon for creativity.”

Yves Drieghe and Bert Pieters swapped their 20 sq m rooftop garden in Belgium for a 20,000 sq m hillside farm near the town of Los Valles. They refurbished the farmhouse, transforming it into a residence for writers, painters and makers that they named Hektor. Guests are encouraged to adhere to the island’s logic. “Small is beautiful,” says Drieghe. “Nature and the locals require respect.” The farm has gradually also become a kind of animal shelter, with a donkey, a duck, two pigs, some sheep and Frits the dog wandering the grounds.

Older generations of residents have been welcoming of new arrivals, as long as they respect the island and its people. “In our case, we held up a mirror to the beauty of their community and what they did so well,” says Drieghe, pointing to farming practices that harness the soil’s mineral richness despite the paucity of rainfall. “Meanwhile, artists bring with them new visions about what the island is and what it could be.”

Prior to this, Drieghe and Pieters ran an agency overseeing big projects, a small magazine shop and a café. “It’s no wonder we were stressed,” says Pieters, laughing. They apply their new stripped down life philosophy to the artists staying in Hektor, who don’t have to submit works at the end of their residency. “We have removed all of the pressure,” says Drieghe. “The same goes for us: there’s no intention to expand.”

Inside the Reserve, Singapore’s largest and most stylish vault

Gregor Gregersen looks down at the bar of gold in his hands. It is a slim trapezoid of burnished, ochre-hued metal, a 12.5kg brick that gleams gently in the light and is worth – at time of writing – about $1.2m (€1.1m). “Gold is intrinsically valuable; it doesn’t depend on the government,” says Gregersen, the founder of the Reserve, Singapore’s newest, largest and arguably most stylish vault for bullion and precious metals. “That’s the philosophy that underlies everything here.”

We are standing in a low-ceilinged bunker in the eastern end of Singapore. All around us, every centimetre of wall space is taken up by rows of drawers, each containing millions of dollars’ worth of bullion. Gregersen places the gold bar back in its drawer and turns the key, locking it safely away. The Reserve consists of a 17,000 sq m facility that was completed in 2024 and can store up to 500 tonnes (or about €45bn) of gold and 10,000 tonnes (about €10bn) of silver, potentially making it the world’s highest-capacity vault (national governments do keep some secrets to themselves).

“The financial system is much more fragile than it appears,” says Gregersen, who is originally from Germany but is now based in Singapore. “Geopolitics is getting more and more fragile. I wanted to create an option for myself and others to have a safe haven for assets.”

The Reserve is different from the other safe-storage sites peppered around the world, in places from Singapore to Switzerland. It doesn’t simply offer clients a place to stash their precious metals – it sells them too. 

“What’s different about us is that we are vertically integrated,” says Gregersen with a grin. “We are the trader, the equivalent of a bank, the vaulting operations and the facility itself. This means that we can control everything, from the time that a client buys the gold to how we source it and how it’s being stored. It also means that we can provide a lot more transparency.” 

In addition to this, The Reserve is more open to public attention – and access. In 2020, when Gregersen bought the building that became The Reserve, it housed an electronic components factory. He enlisted architects Wesley Liew and Jessica Baczkowski to transform the nondescript six-storey structure into an architectural marvel.

While the gold and the private vaults (used by the Reserve’s highest-paying clients to stash whatever they desire under guard, laser, lock and key) are located in small dedicated chambers, the silver vault is a cavernous 32-metre-high space of giant illuminated shelves. (Gregersen believes that silver is significantly undervalued – but perhaps you would expect him to.) A fifth-floor lounge and coffee bar, which Gregersen plans to let to corporations and luxury firms for parties and fashion shows, offers a vertiginous view of the vault from above. The cumulative aesthetic effect of this falls somewhere between Blade Runner and the Batcave. 

Gregersen is aware that The Reserve, in its total aversion to being nondescript and under-the-radar, is nothing like a “traditional” vault. But, he says, it checks all the boxes that matter. 

“Singapore is already a very safe place,” he says. “Having said that, we still have the heavy walls, we have mantraps – where a door closes behind you, sensor checks are happening. And if we don’t like you, we don’t open the other door and we call the police. We have auxiliary police, we have the lasers, we have motion sensors, vibration sensors, we have almost 500 CCTV cameras.” Gregersen pauses, then adds: “But you also need to have style.”
thereserve.sg

Amsterdam’s rebel mayor on sex, drugs and tourists

The first mayor of Amsterdam was appointed in 1383 in a process not dissimilar to that used in 2018, when Femke Halsema became the first woman to hold the position. Amsterdam’s mayor is nominated by the minister of the interior and kingdom relations on the recommendation of the municipal council – a selection then rubber-stamped by the Dutch monarch. This makes Halsema’s role officially apolitical but she has responsibility for many political things, including taxation and the police. Some argue that this state of affairs is more suited to the 14th century but not being beholden to voters might also mean that a politician can propose radical solutions to urban ills.

Halsema has done exactly this. She is a proponent of both decriminalising all drugs and introducing tighter rules on the selling of cannabis to tourists, as well as its consumption. (It is the only narcotic currently legal in the Netherlands.) Her boldest idea – relocating Amsterdam’s red-light district to a purpose-built “erotic centre” on the outskirts of town – does not contradict her pro-sex-worker pronouncements. She is also battling the twin scourges of gentrification and over-tourism, signing legislation this year that will limit to 15 the number of days residential properties in certain neighbourhoods can be let out on platforms such as Airbnb; while in 2023 she launched “Stay Away”, a campaign to deter undesirable tourists from visiting Amsterdam. 

But perhaps her greatest challenge came in November last year, when clashes between supporters of Israeli soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv and local youths made global headlines. Media reports alleged that young men had “hunted” the team’s Jewish fans, sparking outrage from both Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu. Halsema earned praise for a response that ultimately calmed tensions between the city’s Jewish and Muslim communities. On a misty day in the Dutch capital, Halsema welcomed Monocle into her official residence, a 17th-century canal-side townhouse, to discuss the riots, housing, security and much more.

Let’s dive into that episode in November that became a global story within hours. What’s it like when the US president inserts himself into your municipal affairs, while the Israeli prime minister proposes dispatching jets to Schiphol Airport?
It felt utterly surreal. Someone told me that the rioters had chosen the sweetest city in Europe. I don’t know whether that’s true but we have relatively little crime and few riots. And then this. Of course, what happened that night was terrible. But in hindsight I’m increasingly astonished. At the very moment we were still collecting all the data, Joe Biden was already responding, 30 minutes before our press conference. We tried to be careful not to be cornered by hasty reactions.

What did you learn from that episode?
What deeply moved me was the pain in our Jewish community. During the Second World War, almost all of the city’s Jews were deported from Amsterdam, with a questionable role played by the municipality. Even after the war, the reception was distressing. Yet Jews have always continued to speak fondly of “Mokum”, their city since the 16th century, with synagogues and a rich Jewish life. After the riots, a deep hurt arose. What shocked me next was how politicians and certain residents were quick to single out Muslims, another pillar of this city. Since the riots, I have been investing a lot of time in conversations with both Jews and Muslims. My message to them is clear: this was your city yesterday, it is today, and it will remain your city tomorrow.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, the city has seemed agitated. Geopolitics has an effect on local politics. How do you govern a restless city where disagreements can lead to physical confrontations?
Are the city and country really more unsettled, or do we cope worse? I think the latter. Amsterdam has a history of resilience. Geopolitical tensions are nothing new – the largest-ever demonstration in the city was against US nuclear weapons in the middle of the Cold War. After September 11 and the murder [by a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan] of film director Theo van Gogh in 2004, emotions also ran high. Commotion is part of a city like Amsterdam; people make themselves heard and sometimes clash. We always have been a city of individuals, not of groups. Unrest is of all times but the reactions now are more hysterical and there is less and less room for dissent. That worries me.

As a mayor, you are in charge of maintaining public order and have authority over the police. How do you approach this?
We call it “the triangle”. It consists of me, the chief public prosecutor and the police commissioner. We direct the police. I have the last vote but we almost always agree. That strengthens my position in talks on security with national politicians. Demonstrations in the city have doubled since 2023. We’re also grappling with a rise in mentally disturbed people prone to violence. We have about 4,750 police officers but are short 300 full-time positions. Yet the government thinks that we have enough people. In the medium term, this harms public safety.

Speaking of public safety and wellbeing, in your position as a mayor and police chief, you advocate for the legalisation of drugs. Other European mayors do not yet dare to explore this topic.
The debate is ideologically charged due to the failed war on drugs. People hardly dare to talk about it rationally for fear that by doing so, they condone it. But why leave a health-risk product to criminals? Alcohol and medicine are regulated, why not drugs? Take MDMA: it’s less harmful than alcohol yet has been banned since the late 1980s. The consequence? The Netherlands is now the world’s biggest producer, resulting in illegal labs and drug wars. We want to investigate how much tax and excise duty we are losing and what a regulated market could look like. Eighty per cent of Amsterdam’s police capacity is used on drug crime. This is unsustainable. It is not a moral issue but an economic and managerial problem that requires rational solutions.

Do any colleagues in Europe share your ideas?
Many leaders privately agree but fear the political fallout of going public. Behind closed doors, I get a lot of support. The mayor of Bern openly supports me, as does Claudia López, the former mayor of Bogotá. Awareness is also growing within police, justice and health services. An international group of former heads of state and secretary-generals support regulation but they wait until they are out of office before speaking out. 

Amsterdam is a prosperous city but residents complain ofhousing shortages and overcrowding.
Growth means that things are going well, and our scale makes the city manageable. However, there are significant issues: we have both the richest and poorest neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, and middle groups are moving away. That is why we invest unequally: not pro rata to the number of inhabitants per neighbourhood. The money goes where it is needed – a pragmatic, sharp, social-democratic choice to keep the city liveable.

Property prices here are rising at the fastest rate in Europe and the population is approaching one million. There is less and less space for lower-income groups. What is the city doing about this?
We are building everywhere but the housing shortage is increasing. Things are moving too slowly. We will have to densify. In new neighbourhoods, we will build upwards, without modifying the historic city centre. This requires more infrastructure, schools and public transport, as we are already competing for every square centimetre, while dealing with the effects of climate change in a city below sea-level. It is a highly complex puzzle.

Tourists are also competing for space – the city had a record 22 million visitors last year. What are you doing to decrease tourism?
We need to think hard about the tourist/resident ratio. The city’s liveability is under enormous pressure. In Barcelona, short-term rentals will be banned from 2028. That will be inevitable for us too, we need to change the tide. People jetting in on €25 flights to binge drink and get high, with no thought for the town, adds nothing to our economy. That needs to change. In Amsterdam, tourism accounts for about 10 per cent of employment. That’s not so bad but not crucial. Business services, technology, and health and sciences mean much more to the city. Fewer tourists do not necessarily harm the economy. Everyone remains welcome but mass tourism without local connection has to decline.

As Amsterdam celebrates its 750th birthday this year, how well is the city really doing?
Amsterdam keeps changing – it’s greener, fairer and more in tune with its residents. But one thing remains constant: it’s a city with a big heart and a rebellious streak. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Mipim, the property industry’s annual meet-up, is finally breaking new ground

Mipim, held in Cannes every year, is the biggest global event for property players, be they developers, venture capitalists, architects or national, state and city leaders with ambitious plans to develop sectors from housing to hospitality. The trade show pulls in exhibitors and attendees from Europe, the Gulf, North Africa and the US, all vying to make the best deals.

This year, Mipim took place under grey skies – literally and metaphorically. You needed an umbrella to keep the downpours at bay but also a thick skin to ignore the potential effects of a US-led tariff war, which had left some wondering whether American projects would be mothballed if steel was unable to enter the country. Yet there was something else at play; a sense that many in Europe would push ahead no matter what and certainly not try to amend targets for emissions reductions or sustainability. There were also pockets of genuine optimism: Ukrainians predicting a building boom post-ceasefire, Brazilians promoting a vibrant and verdant hospitality boom and the UK strutting its stuff, believing that the ills around housing might finally be addressed.

At Mipim it is possible to discern the levels of confidence around the world and see where’s on the up. And Monocle was there in force this year – with a radio studio at the heart of the event’s main venue, the Palais des Festivals. Here is a snapshot of a few of the conversations we had; for a deeper dive, tune in to our special episode of The Urbanist. Now let’s get building.

1.
Make Europe great again
Muyiwa Oki
President, Royal Institute of British Architects

In the US we are seeing the government back away from sustainability, lowering emission standards. Do you think that will happen in the UK?
“I believe that a new generation of architects and older real-estate professionals need to come together. They need to put their foot on the gas – as it were – to ensure that we do not miss out on this opportunity. I sat in on the keynote speech by Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, and he mentioned this important point about optimising for the future of the EU and the European continent, and that our future needs to be sustainable. And that comes from having sustainable energy sources. In his opinion, which I agree with, we need to ensure that we have our own sources of energy that we control. In Europe we need to buckle down.”

2.
Foster resilience
Haris Doukas
Mayor of Athens

Athens is incredibly hot during the summer, what can be done to address this and deliver a better quality of life? 
“When I was running for mayor, I said that within five years, I would try to reduce the ‘feeling temperature’ by 5C. This went viral. People said that it couldn’t be done. I insisted that there were two things that we could do immediately and the first was to plant trees. I told people that we would deliver 25,000 trees in five years but we did it in the first year. We now have heat maps and are planting trees in the places where there are the biggest rises in temperature in the summer. The second thing is that we are using new materials for roads. They’re more expensive but they don’t store heat. We are engaging residents too: we have awards for the greening of rooftops and gardening so if you are planting your roof, your balcony or anywhere in your city, we can give you specific bonuses.”

3.
Fix your own city
Mathias Müller-Using and Astrid Maria Rappel
Founder and CEO, Inter±pol Studios; communications and development at Dietrich Untertrifaller 

Mathias, you have transformed a Second World War bunker in Hamburg into a public space, with an urban park on its roof and a path to the top inspired by the High Line. A million people have now visited. How did this come about?
“It was built between 1942 and 1943 [using forced labour]. It’s a concrete monster, it’s 40 metres high and in the middle of the city. It made me think about how we could make a better place out of it. I could see it every day from my apartment. The core idea was to bring nature and greenery onto this building and to develop a concept so that people could get up to the top without going into the building. And this is what we have done.”

Astrid, you’ve seen the project – what’s your impression?
“Before it was a private building and now it’s a public one, and this has completely changed the image of the surroundings and the image of Hamburg. The project has taken a really bad monument and given it a positive image without forgetting its history. The fact that it’s accessible to everyone is important. And this is all thanks to Mathias’s vision.”

4.
Fill those empty spaces
Alice Charles
Global leader of strategic partnerships and director of the Cities, Planning and Design team at Arup

Many cities are grappling with the lack of affordable housing. What’s the solution?
“It takes time to build housing – building is your medium-term solution. Your short-term solution is making use of vacant stock. Some cities have done good work already: Melbourne has looked at its water data to understand what housing is vacant. Paris found a way to deal with Airbnb rentals by putting a tax on Airbnb and making sure that these properties meet health and safety standards. If we were to apply more uniform approaches across cities to the likes of Airbnb, then you might suddenly see stock coming on the market for citizens to rent.

Another phenomenon is stock being held. It could be an investor from overseas who wants to hold an asset in the currency of that country. And they’re not renting out that asset. There has to be taxation to encourage the rental of this stock. To solve your problem and your crisis in the short term, it’s going to be about working with that vacant stock. Mid-term is about making sure that you’re unlocking land for development. Everyone thinks that planning is the problem but that’s not necessarily the case. When we relax planning too much, that’s generally just before we have a crash, and then we’re left with stock that is of poor quality. There’s a very difficult balancing act that governments need to get right when it comes to planning. I’m always concerned when a government says that it’s all a planning problem.” 

5.
How to drive change
Giovanni de Niederhäusern
Senior vice-president, architecture and product design, Pininfarina 

What unites the properties that sit under your brand? Is there a specific aesthetic?
“I always say that I would like people to recognise Pininfarina not for the aesthetic but for our methodology, which goes back to car design. Pininfarina worked with almost every famous car designer around the world. It is a company that was able to adapt its vision and create a car that was unique, which was innovative but was made in the image of the car manufacturer, not of Pininfarina itself. And we have the same thing in architecture. So depending not just on the client but on the social, economic and geographical context, the architecture can be very different. What is always the same is the methodology, which is strict and is able to create value. With a Pininfarina building you see the detail; you understand the relation with the context.”

6.
It’s a materials world
Jordan Goldstein
C0-CEO, Gensler

With climate resilience becoming a critical urban concern, what design strategies
will define the next generation of sustainable, liveable cities?
“We believe that to shape a better future through design, it’s important to think about materials, structures and sites and ask, ‘Do we always have to build new?’ There are all these different materials coming into architects’ offices so how do we start to look at these materials through a resilience lens? So we put out the Gensler Product Sustainability Standards, setting the minimum thresholds for materials and finishes for both buildings and interiors. The result is that it has made us go through the materials in our libraries and offices and say, ‘You know what? These just don’t work.’ This then creates a ripple effect. Suddenly you have manufacturers and vendors rethinking some of the fabrication processes and material composition of what’s in the marketplace.”

7.
New nations head to Cannes
Nicolas Kozubek
Managing director, Mipim

Uzbekistan and Romania are new attendees. Are you seeing a change in the countries coming to Mipim? 
“Yes there’s definitely a shift. There are countries that are very mature in their urban development that are looking to understand how they will face future challenges with their existing built environment. In Europe and across the US, where the possibility to build something totally new is low, you have to understand how you retrofit, how you rebuild, how you renew what you have. And on the other side, you have vast parts of the globe where urban development is the topical issue because nations have rising populations and a will to modernise. Uzbekistan is a nice example because the New Tashkent project is something that is crucial for them. They are very proud of it. They are showcasing it their way this year and then, as exhibitors, they will learn about what they can achieve at the event. I’m sure that they will come back next year and continue this story further.”

8.
How to retrofit 
Sebastien Ricard and Yasmin Al-Ani Spence 
Board directors, WilkinsonEyre

Sebastien, what did you learn from transforming the Battersea Power Station into one of London’s most important mixed-use developments?
“The biggest thing I’ve learned on the project is that actually you can do anything. A lot of people felt that the project would never happen – it was too complex, too challenging. The building was in a very poor state. So I think that if you put your mind to it, whether you’re a client or a designer, you can always find a positive solution.”

Yasmin, you’re involved in the regeneration of the Citi Bank building in Canary Wharf, where you are transforming an old skyscraper into a modern workplace, even inserting a winter garden halfway up the tower. What’s the plan?
“It is an extraordinary project and it’s very daring that Citi decided to keep the tower. I think more and more we will see this happening; it’s a huge learning curve for the construction industry, which will have to adapt to these new ways of building, to think a bit outside the box of how things can be done because there isn’t a building site – all the materials are stored inside the tower. It was built in 1999 and it was segregated floor by floor; what we’ve done is make it more democratic – in the middle is now a space for everybody. The winter garden is open to the fresh air so people don’t always have to leave the building if they want to go out. We’ve made the tower into a town. And everything that a town needs the tower has. It allows for a more collaborative work environment.”

Supermarkets have lost their charm. How can we make them better?

At their best, grocery stores are engines for neighbourhoods and platforms for smaller, honest and interesting businesses. By stocking great produce, they boost cottage industries, help local farmers and artisans while delivering the best options for their customers. An excellent grocer’s offers a place to meet, ideally with a café for mingling. Good ones are also sensory experiences. Great ones combine familiarity and personal service. 

Sadly, many supermarkets have become utilitarian and samey – even dystopian in the impersonality of their self-checkouts. Monocle has written about retail since we launched more than 18 years ago. We also have shops and cafés that show how we like to do things. So let us share some ideas about a shopping format that’s ripe for reinvention.

1.
Work from the ground up

Do away with drab grey lino-like floors or pebbledash plastic and opt for a material that speaks to the calibre of what’s for sale. At Paris’s La Grand Epicerie Rive Droit, a masterclass in food retail owned by luxury group LVMH, there are heavyset stone tiles in the fromagerie, wooden parquetry in the delicatessen and luxurious marble in the ready-made section. The fishmonger is a mosaic-filled tribute to the sea’s bounty.

Together, these combine to create the atmosphere of a department store for delectables that invites shoppers to stay, browse and pick up a few treats (bonus: it’s also easy to clean if there are spills). For more inspiration, look to Grandiose, a chain of supermarkets in the uae, which also uses different flooring to frame its products by type and region. 

2.
Hire a shop-friendly architect

From the height of the shelves to the clarity of the signage, supermarkets need to be functional in design. But they can also draw on a few ideas from luxury retail spaces, such as the use of natural light and the flow through the space. (See the work of Los Angeles and Lausanne-based architect David Montalba.) MPreis’s timbered Tyrolean headquarters, for example, are an aesthetic homage to the region’s lush woodlands, which are a strong source of regional pride.

And it’s not just the produce that the Austrian food retailer goes to great lengths to source from the surrounding alpine resorts; the design of MPreis’s supermarkets is deeply rooted in Tyrolese culture and craft of its native Innsbruck. Pür Sudtirol also shows how to succeed on a smaller scale.

3.
Get the light right

Remember that you’re selling food and do away with harsh strip lighting reminiscent of a dentist’s office. Prioritise warmer tones overhead and gentle spotlights that compliment a sense of discovery by leading customers to new finds. US firm Erewhon is the master of using light to imbue a sense of preciousness: shoppers at its stores are greeted by pyramids of brightly lit produce that can transform a green apple or a blushing tomato into something precious.

4.
Stack the shelves in style

Fukushimaya Tasting Market worked with Tokyo-based Landscape Products to create pantry-like wooden shelves in its Shibuya shop: these emphasise the cottage-industry origins of its small-batch producers.
For larger stores, look to the sturdy
wooden shelves at Harris Farm Markets in Sydney, while Yaoya a French-Japanese neighbourhood grocer in Guethary, France, presents its wares on blonde woods, wicker baskets and farmyard crates to great success.

5.
Tell a story with products

Madrid’s specialist food retailer Petramora keeps it in-house with a line of products from its own flock of Churra sheep, which tell a story about its connections to the Spanish countryside. Seek out producers who speak to your brand; think of them as collaborators, not “own-brand” products (this way you can also see how they sell before committing). The Herkku classics sold at department store Stockmann’s market hall in Helsinki is a case in point and has become a mark of quality.

6.
Be selective, not exhaustive

Choose products with excitement and delight – but stock selectively and consider quality control. Italy’s Esselunga leads the way with its in-house sommelier service, which advises on the best sancerre to pair with sea bass and can be relied upon for finding one-off bottles for a dinner party. When Michael Käfer founded his eponymous Munich-based market and restaurant, he made sure to be involved in selecting the products that made it to the shelves.

7.
Pack in style

Wanzl has been the go-to Bavarian builder of hardy shopping baskets and metal trolleys for more than a century. But for a personal roller with grace, Perigot’s lightweight “trolley market” consists of two removable baskets that slot elegantly into a sleek black frame. Meanwhile, Rolser has been building zippy shoppers in Alicante since 1966. Its Plegamatic trolley, which can be folded to the size of a tote, was once a fond fixture of small grocers across Spain. 

8.
Play an original soundtrack

Don’t subject shoppers to faded floor-fillers or fuzzy radio stations. Central Market by Texas’s heb Grocery is known for its soundtrack. Expect lesser-known B-sides, up-and-coming acts and deep-cut hits rescued from the archives. Music can improve your mood and offer customers a few ideas to freshen up their own playlists. Central Market’s flagship supermarket in Austin even has a patio where (decent) live bands play through the week.

9.
Say no to self-checkouts

Automated checkouts have become an unexpected nightmare in the bagging area. They snarl up the aisles as machines go bust and queues snake through the shop, and lead staff to bark at customers as machines become available. The setup has veered away from its promised ease and efficiency. Sensible supermarkets are going back to basics: Booths, a high-end grocer in the UK, has done away with self-checkouts. Good service is still the best solution.

10.
Welcome the weekly shop

Daily – and weekly – essentials must come first. Some shops have an exhaustive collection of olive oil but don’t do decent chopped tomatoes. Butterfield Market in New York and Kinokuniya International in Tokyo have remained in business so long because they know what shoppers want. Maybe being the only shop in town that sells a rare manuka honey will draw a few, but being a neighbourhood staple means being dependable about your stock too.

Illustrations by Donghyun Lim

Five of the world’s most peaceful buildings, where architecture soothes the soul

For millennia people have sought out places to visit where they can get away from the bustle of everyday life. Architecture has the ability to create moments of calm – think of how you feel when you stop at the threshold of an awe-inspiring hall, pause for a moment of contemplation in a city cathedral or clamber into a sauna in the middle of a Scandinavian winter. The fast pace of modern life means that there’s a greater need for such places than ever. That’s why Monocle has journeyed across the globe to bring you this selection of outstanding buildings that offer somewhere for our thoughts to drift – and give us space to breathe.

1.
A place of meditation
Kohtei art pavilion
Fukuyama, Japan

Nothing quite prepares the first-time viewer for the sight of Kohtei. Set in lush green hills to the west of the Japanese city of Fukuyama, the Buddhist meditation pavilion has a mysterious air, appearing to hover above a sea of stones. That was exactly the intention of Kohei Nawa, the contemporary artist who created the design. “Kohtei was designed to resemble a ship floating in the mountains,” says Nawa, who worked on the pavilion with architects Yoshitaka Lee and Yuichi Kodai as part of an art collective, Sandwich. 

The maritime echoes were no accident. The 1960s Zen temple of Shinshoji, in whose grounds Kohtei was completed in 2016, was founded by the president of Tsuneishi, a shipbuilding company based nearby. But the subject also offered a gracefulness to the project. Drafting in craftsmen from the area, Nawa and the two architects had 590,000 pieces of Sawara cypress layered on top of each other using a traditional roofing technique called kokera-buki. In spite of the building’s size, stretching to some 45 metres in length, the delicate wooden shingles give the hull-like structure a sense of lightness.

Then there is the sensation of entering the pavilion: plunging into total darkness is an immediate shock to the visitor’s system. “The idea was to create a meditative experience by interpreting Zen through contemporary art,” says Nawa. “The interior expresses an ‘ocean of consciousness’ through installations of water and light. In the darkness, faint light and rippling waves flicker, allowing visitors to engage in a quiet sensory experience that sharpens their senses.” The duration of the installation is set to 25 minutes, the same length of time it takes for a meditation candle used in Zen practice to burn out. Visitors emerge discombobulated by what is an unexpectedly profound experience. Without trying, they have touched on the simplicity and impermanence that is at the heart of Zen. “This work emerges as a space where the external and the internal; the hard and the soft; and architecture and art resonate with each other in harmony,” says Nawa.

While the surrounding Shinshoji temple and gardens open a door to Zen, Kohtei is perhaps the most effective route into the Buddhist meditation practice. And there is much it can offer in the modern world, not least a way to switch off from our busy, overstimulated lives.
szmg.jp

2.
A place to respect the dead
Sexto Pantéon 
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Hidden in the underbelly of the vast, flat plain of the Chacarita neighbourhood cemetery in Buenos Aires, the subterranean Sexto Pantéon (Sixth Pantheon) is a quiet, contemplative place of burial. Designed by Ítala Fulvia Villa, one of Argentina’s first active female architects and a keen urbanist who helped to shape the capital, its structure is a radical departure from traditional expectations of funerary architecture.

On the surface of the cemetery’s 95-hectare plot (which makes it one of the largest in the world) there is little indication of what lies beneath. Since construction was completed in 1958, it has been largely overlooked by those seeking an architectural pilgrimage due to the lack of visible structure. But those who do visit find themselves at first surrounded by angular lawns and an expanse of sky. Occasional monolithic concrete structures stem upwards, resembling familiar mausoleums. “When you approach the central stairway, however, a new curiosity is immediately fired up,” says Léa Namer, author of 2024’s Chacarita Moderna – the first major written work to highlight the necropolis and chronicle Villa’s story. “From above, you begin to see strange elements that entice you to make the descent. You see the darkness, the shadows. You spot the full-sized trees growing underground.”

Passing down into the necropolis via its labyrinthine stairway is a sensory experience. “You enter an intermediary world,” says Namer. “It’s suddenly cold. The light changes. All sound falls away.” With those shifts come bigger existential realisations: the scale of the resting place, home to more than 150,000 bodies, must be confronted. “The architect achieved something remarkable. Through her designs, spatial planning and choices of material, Villa makes the visitor ask themselves some really, really big questions.”

Time spent under the earth is dedicated to silence, paying respects or gaining perspective. But what follows is what the Ancient Greeks called anabasis – the return to the land of the living. In myth, this is an important act; one that distinguishes the person who has a choice to leave from those who are forced to stay. Visitors returning to the surface from Villa’s Sixth Pantheon might even bring back a greater appreciation for life itself.
chacaritamoderna.com

3.
A place to switch off the city noise
Löyly sauna
Helsinki, Finland

According to the latest UN World Happiness Report, published in March, the Finns are the happiest nation on Earth. Perhaps this has something to do with the country’s three-million-plus saunas. Not only do the heated rooms provide a space to cleanse and purge, but they also present the chance for a moment of solitude and reflection. 

The sensation of stepping away from the stresses of daily life isn’t confined to the countryside either, as evidenced by urban saunas such as Löyly, near the harbour in Helsinki’s Hernesaari neighbourhood. “When we set about creating Löyly, the goal was to offer residents a place to check out of the hectic pace of life,” its co-founder Jasper Pääkkönen tells monocle. “We are inundated in modern society and our phones are constantly buzzing. But once you’re in the sauna, it’s just you for an hour or two.” 

Opened in 2016,  Löyly’s design plays a key role in setting up the sauna as a sanctuary. Shielded from the outside world by a pinewood shell, the rooms are kept dim, even in summer. Like the best saunas, it feels spartan, with the focus centred on the heat – löyly is a Finnish word describing hot steam evaporating from sauna stones. The mysterious ambience is accentuated by the use of wood within.

What might surprise some is that this space for solitary reflection has become one of Helsinki’s most popular attractions. As Pääkkönen points out, there’s something  refreshingly down-to-earth about spaces where people are stripped of clothes and accessories, as well as wealth and status. “There are no distractions in the sauna,” says Pääkkönen. Instead, the world outside fades and time passes at a different speed. “I can’t think of a setting better suited to contemplation,” he says.
loylyhelsinki.fi

4.
A place for creative reflection
Kimbell Art Museum 
Fort Worth, USA

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is the kind of place you could visit for the building alone. Though the collection is highly impressive, with some 375 works by artists including Claude Monet and Michelangelo, the Louis Kahn-designed building is the real masterpiece. Opened in 1972, it was the last project that the Estonian-born American architect completed before he died. According to museum director Eric Lee, it was also Kahn’s personal favourite. With concrete vaults bathed in the bright Texas sun, walls clad in travertine (the same as used in the Getty Museum) and elements of cork and white oak, it invites tranquillity. “It is a place of serenity,” says Lee. 

The feeling of calm washes over visitors from the moment they set foot on the 3.9-hectare property, which is dotted with tall elm and yaupon holly trees. “It starts outdoors on the grounds,” says Lee, identifying the gentle bubbling sound of water from the fountain as a source of peacefulness. Deeper within the building, the Texas light becomes more subdued. “It’s a blend of natural and artificial light, so both cold and warm,” says Lee. “It’s very inward looking.” Some might consider the concrete vaults to be brutalist in design but Lee says that this is not the case. “It was built at a time when brutalist architecture was the dominant mode but this is not a brutalist building,” he says, adding that Kahn’s prerogative was to make it welcoming. “It is human scale.”

The structure has a modernist feel but it also strikes a balance between contemporary and classic styles. “Kahn was very much inspired by ancient architecture,” says Lee. Inside, the cool space calls for a natural hush. “I never hear people raising their voices,” he says. “You speak in a whisper because it feels like a holy space, in the non-religious sense. It’s very spiritual.” More than that, it invites visitors to slow down and immerse themselves in an entirely different world for a couple of hours. “It offers an opportunity for people to take a break from ordinary life,” says Lee. “It’s magical.”
kimbellart.org

5.
A place to reflect
Chapelle du Rosaire à Vence
Vence, France

French artist Henri Matisse designed the Chapelle du Rosaire à Vence in 1951 but its merit is more than purely ecclesiastical. Indeed, its atheist creator, who had limited experience working with religious art, became disillusioned by divinity after cancer confined him to a wheelchair. This sanctuary in Vence was actually a token of gratitude for Monique Bourgeois, the night nurse who dedicated herself to overseeing his convalescence before becoming a Dominican nun in a convent that lacked a chapel. It was an opportunity that the French artist found himself impossible to turn down despite the limitations of his health. “Matisse had carte blanche within the constraints of such a place of worship,” Gaëlle Teste de Sagey, manager of Matisse’s chapel, tells monocle. Fatigued and unwell, he was forced to work slowly and the project took four long years to complete. But the result is a remarkable alliance between faith and artistic endeavour.

Regarded as Matisse’s architectural chef-d’oeuvre, it was the first time that the artist had created a monument in its totality. “Matisse saw the relationship between the objects as little worlds that fit together,” says Teste de Sagey. From the altar and crucifix to the ceramic murals featuring the figures of the Madonna and Saint Dominique, as well as the colourful vestments of priests, Matisse dedicated his final years to this deeply personal and reflective work. Under the guidance of French architect Auguste Perret,  a master of reinforced concrete, Matisse designed the L-shaped chapel’s two narrow naves in modest proportions due to the steep terrain on which the chapel is perched. Just 15 metres long by six metres wide, the glory is in its artistic value rather than its size.

But this doesn’t detract from the chapel’s grandeur. “Matisse made every effort to give an impression of elevation,” says Teste de Sagey. Opting for a pared-back colour palette for the chapel’s 15 stained-glass windows, Matisse used blue inspired by the surrounding Côte d’Azur, yellow for sunlight – a divine glow that reaches every corner of the chapel – and distinctive green palm-leaf motifs as a reminder of the lush nature of the Riviera, which he appreciated from his window during his recovery. “The organ-pipe shape of the windows is very significant in a chapel with no organ,” says Teste de Sagey. “It corresponds with Matisse’s idea that the musicality in his chapel would come from the luminosity.”

The dappled Provençal rays that dance around the chapel’s white-tiled interior still offer a sense of hope. “Matisse found the silent rhythm of the reflections in the stained-glass windows immensely soothing,” says Teste de Sagey. And so will anyone visiting today.
chapellematisse.fr