Issues

Branch network

Anyone who has ever visited a Swiss chalet, Swedish lake house or Japanese minka will be aware of the serenity, simplicity and soothing scent of wooden buildings. In recent years this traditional form of architecture has taken an even greater step forward. One of the oldest construction materials known to man, timber is conquering big architecture in major cities. In Tokyo there are plans for a 70-storey skyscraper which, at 350 metres, will be the world’s tallest wooden structure. The timber revival is driven by its elegance, flexibility, versatility and sustainability – not to mention that it does well in earthquakes. While the production of steel or concrete emits huge quantities of carbon dioxide, wood binds it. And, if they are sustainably cultivated and logged, trees grow back.

Demand for wood and timber is at an all-time high. Low interest rates and the foreseeable end of the pandemic mean that construction businesses are thriving. But the heightened demand comes at a cost. Within a year, prices for one cubic metre of pinewood have quadrupled in many markets, hitting $600 (€490) in the US in May. That’s because the supply of wood suitable for construction is limited and the industry wasn’t prepared for the boom. After the 2008 financial crisis, global demand for timber dropped as construction stalled, sawmills closed and lumberjacks found other jobs. Now, with demand rising fast, suppliers are struggling. Forget romantic notions of log cabins built from trees sawn in leafy glades, timber is a hotly traded global commodity. It’s also quite the geopolitical football, with some countries scoring own goals in a bid to settle other trade scores.

The US, a major timber importer, is a case in point. The Trump administration slapped tariffs of up to 24 per cent on Canadian wood, accusing its neighbour and one of its major suppliers of subsidising its own lumber industry. The Biden administration has shown few signs of changing course. Rather than stimulate the US lumber industry as Trump might have hoped, the move forced US traders to make up the difference from Europe. In 2020, Europe’s timber exports to the US surged by about 50 per cent and prices are rising as US buyers compete with the world’s largest timber importer, China. To make matters worse, Beijing is eyeing European wood after banning timber from Australia as part of a broader trade dispute.

Then there’s Russia, the world’s biggest timber producer, complicating matters further. In a bid to spur the creation of sawmills at home and foster economic development in heavily forested Siberia and its eastern region, Russia plans to ban the export of raw logs from January 2022. This move will only exacerbate global shortages; Chinese sawmills will have to satisfy their hunger elsewhere.

Given the high demand and prices, other suppliers will be tempted to make up the difference, not always with positive results. In Brazil, environmental tragedy looms as the rate of deforestation in the Amazon is already the highest in a decade. In May, Brazil’s environment minister was investigated for illegal timber sales. Similarly, illegal logging is a major issue in Ukraine and has implicated multinational corporations. Politicians need to take sustainable forestry, certified production and reforestation efforts seriously.

Could these slippery international trends impede the use of wood in construction? That depends on your timeframe. Many countries are boosting capacity and building sawmills; recycling construction materials can also help to alleviate supply shortages. Experts predict that wood prices will normalise by 2023 but for the foreseeable future, buyers will have to watch out for trade disputes, tariffs and supply shortages, and corporations will need to put more effort into securing and diversifying their supply chains.

It’s also worth noting that nearly 40 per cent of global carbon emissions come from the construction industry; timber’s sustainability and the environmental impact of construction will only become more relevant in the coming years. Architects and construction companies are eager to erect timber structures that are built to last. If politicians can take their responsibility seriously and cut barriers to supply, then our cities should be ready to admire many more wooden marvels for decades to come.

Images: Felix Odel, Shutterstock

They have it licked

As the mercury rises, hungry customers – many with children pulling at their sleeves – seek refreshment in ice cream. And a growing segment within the market is for artisanal ice cream, which is worth some €16bn and forecast to grow by 6 per cent a year. Tastes are changing too. Many are no longer impressed by lurid coloured sauces, sprinkles and sugary adornments, and are more interested in lower-sugar alternatives. The cream of the crop isn’t currently ice cream at all but Italian-style gelato that’s free from preservatives and artificial flavours, uses natural ingredients and contains less fat.

One business that has been a pioneer for decades is Italy’s Carpigiani, a leader in manufacturing gelato machines and equipment to make premium soft-serve ice cream. Carpigiani isn’t just hardware, though; it also operates 20 campuses across the globe to impart the culture of Italian gelato. “In recent years we’ve seen a growing interest in dairy-free, sugar-free options and a greater desire by our students to make gelato from new ingredients, especially those of Asian origin such as yuzu or green tea,” says Kaori Ito, director of the Carpigiani Gelato University, which teaches more than 8,000 people every year. So if the frozen-treat industry is heating up, who has the scoop for success? Here are three firms that have it licked.

Deep freeze
Artistry, innovation and quality ingredients are the hallmark of these frozen-treat standouts.

1.
Santini
Lisbon

Some good ideas are always good ideas. Started more than 70 years ago by an Italian immigrant from Cortina with one shop in Estoril, Santini is today a fêted name among the Portuguese when the heat becomes too much for them. The company’s bright red-and-white branding catches the eye, while its large selection of flavours is served using Italian artisanal gelato machines. Patrons at its 16 outposts in Portugal can sample traditional flavours such as chocolate, vanilla and strawberry along with newer concoctions, including a rather appetising chocolate mousse. Overseen by third-generation owner Eduardo Santini Fuertes, the business has grown in recent years thanks to a boom in tourism. It has expanded the number of Lisbon-area gelato parlours and opened shops in Porto and Faro. This year? There are ice lollies in the pipeline.
santini.pt

2.
Nubocha
USA

Gianluca Franzoni brought chocolate brand Domori to life before devising this dairy-free gelato he’d like to make a leader in the US market. The Nubocha co-founder concocted a vegan ice cream recipe that uses quality ingredients from spring water to Hawaiian sea salt and Ecuadorean cacao, and a selection of nuts such as Sicilian almonds and Piedmontese hazelnuts. He also uses allulose, a natural sweetener found in foods such as figs and maple syrup. He sourced the nuts from farmers in the US state of Georgia for his peanut-butter flavour. Launched in spring 2020, the brand’s gelato is available in five flavours and has quickly attracted a hungry following in the US, where it’s stocked in some 400 food shops and Sprouts Farmers Market stores.
nubocha.com

3.
Cream of the Crop Gelato
Dublin

Ireland might not leap to mind as a gelato hotspot but São Paulo native and chef Giselle Makinde has quickly made her mark there with Cream of the Crop Gelato. The Dublin-based business began operations in September 2020, when Makinde had the idea of making an artisanal gelato from surplus food stocks. In short order, she offers traditional Italian-style milk-based gelato, dairy-free variants and a selection of sorbets. Makinde’s recipes include the seeds and skins of fruits, including banana peels, to make the most of the available ingredients. Her list of flavours ranges from sheep yoghurt and berries to bread-and-butter pudding and cantaloupe-lemongrass sorbet. Her savvy and decidedly sweet approach to combating food waste has seen her quickly attract stockists from speciality shops to supermarkets.
creamofthecropgelato.com

Ship shape

An outstanding ferry ride is a rare thing and, up until now, very few shipbuilders and operators have come up with much in the way of ideas for improving things. There’s much room for improvement on board and the noxious diesel smoke that most ferries pump out is unlikely to impress those taking some air on the rear deck.

Yet there are signs of progress. Some ferries now use batteries, liquefied natural gas or even hydrogen, and Norway has dozens of electric ships in service, some made by Brødrene Aa, a family-owned business based in Vestland. Denmark is also making headway with its electric car ferries. When it comes to aesthetics, there’s much to be admired in the seemly interiors of Aurora Botnia, a new Finnish design that will sail between Vaasa in Finland and Umeå, Sweden.

So, building on this momentum, we’re floating 10 proposals to make travelling by ferry more attractive to passengers and more profitable for the vessels’ operators.

1.
Natural finishes

Forget the standard range of pitiful faux-pine panelling married to white plastics and iffy chromes. Instead, let’s riff on the seafarers of old with more real wood and natural hues. In sunnier spots, a splash of brighter colours could work if used sparingly. Spend a little more on the fit and finishes, and passengers will feel the difference. Teaming up with local interior designers to bring in regional materials and furniture made nearby will also help.

2.
Show us your deck

Too many trips confine passengers to stuffy cabins listening to the chunter of the engine. Not on our ideal ferry. If the sun’s out, then we’ll make the most of space to embrace the breeze on deck. Sturdy awnings and partitions can create spaces that are shielded from the elements. There are also loungers, tables for full service and a bar for drinks.

3.
Rethink the rations

Fatty fast food and insipid coffee tends to be standard fare at sea. But why? Why not give passengers something that won’t turn their stomach if the swell kicks up? On shorter trips, install a well-turned-out kiosk with hot drinks, strong coffee and snacks made with fresh produce picked up daily at port. On longer runs or larger ferries, investing in a restaurant good enough to tempt guests who aren’t commuting could add another revenue stream. Design-wise, it’s a good idea to use non-slip crockery and ditch wobbly thin-stemmed drinking vessels.

4.
Sell while you sail

Many ferries have one shop selling the same unimaginative fare – novelty chocolates, alcohol and generic tourist tat. While acknowledging that booze is quite good business, some operators should partner with nearby shops, artisans and designers to offer products that passengers might be pleased to discover and tempted to take home.

5.
Uniform decisions

While those in charge of the ship tend to have the right idea (classic works best here, and who isn’t a sucker for a sea captain), the rest of a ferry’s crew are often lucky if they get a grubby polo shirt with a badly embroidered logo. We’d opt for a much sharper and more distinctive look that’s comfortable, fresh and hints at the headier days of travel. We’re not going the full tricorne, mind, but there’s certainly room for some striped jerseys from Saint James.

6.
Strike up the band?

On longer runs, why not bring along some live music, preferably out on deck, weather permitting. Even better if you take it as a chance to promote undiscovered talents from the destination country or island. But do vet the playlist; this isn’t the breakthrough moment or platform of choice for your cousin’s heavy metal band.

7.
Let there be light

All boats would look even more buoyant if they ditched the harsh leds and fluorescent floodlights in favour of some dimmer lights – though not so dark that you find yourself tumbling over the armchair in the galley. You might need fog lights for safety but, for heaven’s sake, don’t direct them on guests while they’re enjoying a drink.

8.
Raising the bar

This can vary in theme depending on location: a cosy snug for aquavit cocktails if you’re in the fjords or a fresh taverna-style affair if you’re island-hopping in the Aegean. Indoor bars should be light and airy, and you can create spaces on deck with comfortable chairs, stools and cover if needed. Ferry designers take note: keep exhaust fumes away from guests.

9.
Nod to the nautical

Careful with this one: it doesn’t mean plastering the walls with anchors. Instead offer passengers some insight into the technical bits of the ship – the geography outside, the speed, the weather or the navigation. It’s fascinating. The crew should be on hand to help – even to answer questions about the journey, the area and whatever else passengers might wonder about. Which brings us to…

10.
Keep the captain

Autonomous shipping technology is increasingly functional, meaning that many ships will soon be able to steer themselves. Self-driving vessels might be economical on transoceanic cargo runs but they’re also tempting for those operating passenger ferries. But doesn’t this leave one of the key draws foundering? As the name suggests, passenger ferries are about transporting people rather than goods – so we think there’s still a case to be made for a captain’s reassuring presence and expertise.

Premium pit stops

The community project
Mashiko Roadside Station, Japan

On a sunny weekday morning, the early bird shoppers at Mashiko Roadside Station are filling their baskets with produce from nearby farms – fresh eggs, pencil-thin asparagus, deep red tomatoes, late-season strawberries, giant radishes and shiitake mushrooms. The cut flowers are selling out quickly, at half the price they would be in Tokyo. The shelves are stacked with ham, bread, pressed juices and bags of rice. With its striking wooden architecture and scenic views of the rice fields beyond, Mashiko looks more stylish farmers market than roadside pit stop.

This is a road station – or michi-no-eki – with a difference. Financed and built by the rural pottery town of Mashiko, with some help from the prefecture and local banks, it opened in 2016 to give the area’s farmers and producers somewhere to sell their goods. Everything from the piles of cabbages to the bottles of wine comes from the area around Mashiko. “Our number one aim is to support the local economy,” says deputy manager Shoko Yamazaki. “Farmers bring their produce in the morning, lay it out and it goes straight to the customer.”

The Mashiko Company, the business behind the road station, was set up to run operations. There is a juicing facility and another workshop for making pots of crème caramel, which have become one of the shop’s biggest sellers and given a new lease of life to a nearby egg producer. They also help farmers by taking some of their other products, such as pickling vinegar, and repackaging them. “The same product in a plain plastic tub will sell for less,” says Yamazaki. “By presenting it in a different way they can make more money.”

There is shelf space available for small bakeries and onigiri rice-ball makers who might not have a shop of their own. Household goods made in the region – such as tenugui printed cotton cloths, white enamelware or Mashiko pottery – are also on sale. “We work with 160 or 170 potters, so people can see a broad selection and visit the ones they’re interested in,” says Yamazaki.

The café here is not the usual franchise set-up – it’s a table-service restaurant with set lunches made with vegetables that can be bought in the shop. Even the soft-whip ice cream is made in Mashiko, flavoured with juice from the area’s strawberries. The ice cream has become so popular that at weekends they have started selling it from a van outside, alongside a selection of houseplants and bonsai that farmers bring in to sell.

The concierge desk, an outpost of the town hall, offers advice to anyone looking to move to the area; houses are advertised and subsidies are on offer for families who relocate to Mashiko. “Demand outstrips supply at the moment,” says Mami Watanabe, standing behind the desk. “We’re finding that there’s a lot of interest from people in their thirties who are looking to move from Tokyo.” As the farming population ages, the team can connect retiring farmers with younger counterparts who might want to take over. There’s also a scheme for fruit and vegetable picking; farms who are open to visitors picking their own spoils can sign up at the shop.

The architecture was carefully considered. “It would have been easy to put up a cheap, low-maintenance building,” says Yamazaki. “But we thought, ‘Is that the kind of building a town like Mashiko – where people make things by hand – should have?”’ Mount Fuji Architects won the public competition and their building uses cedar from nearby Mount Yamizo and sakan plaster made from the same clay used for the town’s pottery.

Shoppers come from far and wide. “Mashiko is a popular tourist destination,” says manager Tomonori Kanda. “We’re also within an hour of cities like Utsunomiya, Mito and Tsukuba.” Some people come for shopping and a picnic out the back. Shoppers can buy bento lunches and borrow a mat to sit on the grass, and dog walkers, families and workers can bask in the lunchtime sun. For those who want to explore further afield, electric bikes are available to hire. There is even a resident goat, Yakkun, a friendly four-year-old who was adopted from a nearby zoo that closed down during the pandemic.

The Mashiko Company now employs 60 people and has recently opened a hotel in a renovated building in town. “We’re making a difference,” says Yamazaki. Connections are being made and farmers are proud to meet their customers, who in turn are learning more about the people who make their food. “For us, this is a shared project between the town hall, the staff who work here, the farmers and the customers – it’s all about Mashiko.”

The country retreat
Gloucester Services, UK

It’s rare for a roadside stop to become part of a trip’s purpose; perhaps that’s because most franchised motorway services don’t really invite lingering. But Gloucester Services is not your usual mid-journey pit stop: it’s a place to refuel and spend an hour (or three) when travelling from London to the Lake District or Wales.

The family at the helm of the Westmorland group, which runs Gloucester Services, have a unique vision of what a service station should look and feel like. There are no Golden Arches or fruit machines; the sunken building design fits seamlessly with the nature around it, covered in a living roof that blends into the Cotswolds landscape, providing respite from the noisy eyesore that is the M5 motorway. The floor-to-ceiling windows even offer views of the greenery and pebble-rimmed pond.

The origins of Westmorland group are of happenstance more than anything else. In 1972, John Dunning’s hill farm in Cumbria was dissected by construction of the M6 motorway. So the family opened a café for passers-by, Tebay Services, which served home-cooked food sourced nearby. The success of this venture – the first family-run motorway services stop in the UK – prompted them to branch out over the following decades. “The farm is the source of inspiration for all our businesses,” says Dunning’s daughter Sarah, who took over operations in 2005 and now manages a number of service stations including Gloucester, which opened in 2014. “We have a connection to the land and the people that produce the food we eat. The farm and the values of farming – that sense that you don’t just farm for today but for the future generations – gives our business a long-term view rooted in respect for local communities.”

Andy James, Gloucester Services’ operations manager, says that the goal is to offer an “oasis of quiet and relaxation”. When Monocle visits it’s the Friday before a national holiday and Gloucester Services is in full swing. With the recent relaxing of lockdown rules in the UK, up to 10,000 people are expected to pass through the doors of its northbound and southbound sites. Charlotte and Steven Coke are travelling from Horwich, near Manchester, to Devon to visit family they haven’t seen in almost a year and say that they make a point of breaking up their drive with a visit. “We always stop here when we go to Devon – and we always recommend it to people,” says Charlotte as their children, Arabella and Hamish, play in the outdoor maze and hunt for tadpoles in the pond.

There’s plenty of space here for those with children or dogs. As well as the maze, there’s a play area and a dog-walking meadow, along with covered outdoor seating areas.

Alongside the serene atmosphere, “it’s also about the food,” says James. In addition to food from the kitchen, there’s a butcher, fishmonger and bakery in the farm shop. The fishmonger sells line-caught fish delivered every two days. The head butcher visits the supplying farms fortnightly. The meat is made into burgers, pies and sausages that are served in the café. “People come here just for our sausage rolls,” says James. Regional cheese on offer includes those made by Jonathan Crump, whose single and double gloucester uses milk solely from Gloucester cows.

Perhaps the most important part of the station’s mission, according to James, is providing jobs for locals. Most of what is sold is sourced in the area and made on-site. The station also works in partnership with the Gloucestershire Gateway Trust, which receives a percentage of non-fuel sales. This connection made the pandemic especially hard, says James. Traffic dipped to 60 per cent of its usual level and much of Gloucester’s 420-strong staff had to be put on furlough. Still, the service station was used by residents of surrounding villages throughout lockdown who came here to pick up groceries, while supermarkets faced shortages and queues.

It’s the quality of the products on offer – more likely to be found in a Harrods food hall than between motorway junctions – that represents a shift in the purpose of a service station. Aside from food, Gloucester Services also sells alcohol, including craft gin, as well as camping gadgets and Patagonia clothing. And it’s all done with a simple idea in mind: that instead of racing to your final destination, drivers should have a chance to enjoy the journey. As James puts it: “When people go on a holiday, it starts here.”

The fruity stop-off
The Big Apple, Canada

For roadtrippers heading east from Toronto along highway 401, there’s a famous silhouette nestled in the verdant Ontario countryside that has marked a welcome and beloved rest stop since the late 1980s. It’s an enormous, oversized sculpture of a red apple, adorned with a large pair of eyes and the cartoon outline of a smile that beams out across the highway.

It is the most visible landmark of one of Canada’s most evocative highway service areas, known as – you guessed it – The Big Apple. Opened on a large orchard near the town of Colborne in 1984, it has become something of a pilgrimage site for travellers driving the route to Ontario’s picturesque Prince Edward County or even further to Montréal or Canada’s Atlantic coast.

Canada’s vast network of roads and highways is dotted with service stations run by provincial, national and international operators. By contrast, The Big Apple has been locally owned since its inception and over the years has stuck to what it knows best: apples. Famed for its apple pies and apple bread made with fruit grown on the surrounding farmland and freshly baked every day, it attracts up to 500,000 visitors a year.

To cater to demand, the offering has expanded. For grown-ups, there’s an on-site cidery with tipples and juice for sale – as well as wine, maple syrup, honey and trinkets produced nearby. For children there’s a miniature railway and a small petting zoo with farm animals. There’s even the chance to clamber up to the top of “Mr Applehead” himself (as the apple sculpture is officially known). For many young ones, this means following in their own parents’ childhood footsteps. The apple, as they always say, very rarely falls far from the tree.

Advance party

1.
Andrew Mueller on…
Why progressive politics is becoming distracted by lifestyle ideas and online debate, instead of tackling the core concerns for us all

In 1972, Australia’s Labor Party (ALP) won the general election, campaigning with the slogan “It’s time.” As rallying cries go, it was both weary and optimistic: the alp had been in opposition for 23 years. The man who led the party back to power was the charismatic Gough Whitlam, whose expansive intellect contained a raging idealism within a pragmatically hard head. Five years before returning Labour to government, he gave a speech to the alp’s Victoria state branch that could, and should, be a manifesto for every progressive party or politician with serious aspirations to change things for the better.

Whitlam’s 1967 speech is remembered for its key phrase, “Certainly, the impotent are pure”. He asked his party the crucial questions faced by all progressive political organisations. Are we here to get elected and get things done? Or are we here to feel good about ourselves? Are we here to improve the quality of life for our citizens, with all the compromises and risks that entails, or are we here to split ideological hairs, denounce traitors and savour the view from the moral high ground? “We construct a philosophy of failure, which finds in defeat a form of justification and a proof of the purity of our principles,” said Whitlam. “Readers in almost any jurisdiction will be able to identify an ostensibly progressive political entity that answers to this description.

Sahra Wagenknecht’s book, The Self-Righteous (see page 66), reads in some respects like a sequel to Whitlam’s 1967 speech. The former leader of Germany’s Die Linke party believes that the moral posturing often associated with progressive politics is not merely idle but actually counter-productive. At the risk of alienating, or at least annoying, her own party’s more vocal segment, she takes a series of swipes at what she calls the “lifestyle left”: comfortable urbanites obsessed with grand themes of social justice and prone to losing patience with those with less lofty concerns, such as buying food, paying rent and finding rewarding work. This self-indulgent fixation on ideas rather than people, as Wagenknecht sees it, is helping to keep progressive politics in opposition.

Wagenknecht’s thesis is not an original one. Indeed, there are places where progressive parties have figured this much out. One of Europe’s more successful progressive parties is the Socialist party of Albania: in April 2021 they won their third consecutive general election under prime minister Edi Rama. The Socialist Party also controls Albania’s capital city: Erion Veliaj, Tirana’s mayor, was elected to a second term in 2019. He started his political journey as an activist and agitator, and says that there’s still part of him that wants to join in the demonstrations that now occasionally gather outside his office in one cause or another. He has learned, however, that you have to pick your battles – and, perhaps more importantly, pick who you battle with.

“When I was growing up, I would get offended very easily,” says Veliaj. And I had a great lesson from my grandmother. She asked, ‘Have you ever seen a dog bark at a human being?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I see that all the time.’ And she said, ‘Good, because it’s in the nature of a dog to bark at anything that moves. But have you ever seen a human bark back at a dog? No, because then the human would look strange, because it’s not in their nature.’ I have realised that my grandma was not very far off. If you bark back at dogs, it makes you look odd. And to the silent majority who like to go about their daily lives with the assurance that a sound person is in charge, you look really stupid.”

Even as an activist, Veliaj was always more interested in working out how to effect change, rather than declaiming melodramatically about why change was needed. Governing has made him even less patient with poseurs.

“If you fall down the drain it will take forever for [socialists] to come to the rescue but they’ll make a statement about solidarity,” he says. “The solidarity of the left is just a song of inertia, rather than a modus operandi. One of the reasons that we’re one of the few left-wing parties that keeps winning is that we’ve learned those lessons very hard and trained ourselves to remain disciplined. Don’t sweat the petty things. And progressives are sweating way too many petty things.”

Progressive politics everywhere is attended by a chorus of point-scorers, ever alert to minute transgressions against modish terminology. Albania is no exception. “But we’ve realised that it doesn’t resonate with most of the public,” says Veliaj. “I get hit all the time with things like, ‘It’s not lgbt; it’s lgbtqi.’ And, you know, all we meant is that the city is open, you can love anyone, you can sleep with anyone, you can believe in any god. That’s the point.”

In Veliaj’s six years in city hall, he has overseen a startling transformation of Tirana, determined to make its public spaces greener, cleaner and more accessible. Such demonstrable results, he has found, have a way of winning arguments. “When we turned downtown Tirana car-free, it was a revolution,” he says. People called me a communist. I was getting death threats. Now, after four years of the car-free zone, if I dared to bring cars back into the city… I already have people getting hysterical and sending me pictures if a moped goes through the barrier, never mind a car. Public opinion is like a cargo ship. It takes a really, really slow turn. But a good captain keeps the course.”

It is hardly unheard of for those on the right to marinate themselves in ideological derangement and frivolous infighting but conservatives do tend eventually to get around to the practicalities of winning; there was a time, not so long ago, when both Brexit and Trumpism were generally regarded as eccentric follies unlikely ever to amount to much. It was the American commentator Michael Kinsley who observed that conservatives look for converts, whereas liberals look for heretics. It’s a weakness exacerbated by social media, where much left-wing discourse is devoted to furious purity contests over issues including, but by no means limited to, race, trans rights, Israel and Palestine, the legacies of empire and other subjects not most constructively discussed in nuance-free blurts of 280 characters or less.

In the UK, the only Labour leader who has won a general election in the past 45 years – Tony Blair, who won three – is regarded as an irredeemable villain by the more volubly online of party members. Labour’s director of communications for Blair’s second victory, in 2001, was Lance Price. As Monocle goes to press, he is performing a similar role in a by-election in Batley and Spen, where Labour’s candidate, Kim Leadbeater, is hoping to win the seat once held by her sister, Jo Cox, who was assassinated in 2016. Price agrees that the background din, amplified by social media, has become much louder but believes that some things haven’t changed.

“The noises-off are louder and harder to ignore,” says Price. “But the need to reconnect with what people are actually talking about is at least as great as it was 20 years ago. The Labour Party hasn’t been listening, and the kind of language it has been using hasn’t been in tune with core concerns. There’s been far too much of Labour talking to itself and not the country.”

Social media, suggests Price, has its uses as a means of broadcast but is a lousy way of hearing anything. “The echo chamber isn’t the real world,” he says. “And it doesn’t cut through. Often there’s a debate on Twitter about [something] but when we go out and talk to people, they’re completely unaware of it. So you stick to what you actually want to say, get the debate on your terms as much as you can and let the noise go on in the background, because it’s probably not going to swing more than half a dozen votes in a constituency of this size.”

Discipline is also necessary for ameliorating another corrosive aspect of social media. Any online pronouncement, however mild, by any politician prompts little response but seething by angry lunatics. This is bad for the equilibrium of politicians, who are only human – and it’s ultimately bad for democracy, if politicians infer that this roiling cauldron of bile represents the electorate. Price says that it’s best simply not to look.

“One of my jobs on this campaign is to get the candidate – who is very authentic, a local person and speaks the language of the constituency she seeks to represent – off Twitter and to ignore the fact that there will always be someone criticising her about every-thing that she says and does.,” says Price. “Because it doesn’t matter.”

Social media certainly has its uses for politicians – it enables direct communication with voters, unfiltered by traditional media, which might not always interpret one’s statements and ideas charitably. But social media is by far the most clamorous generator of the kind of racket that can drive progressive politicians to distraction – even oblivion. Politicians and political obsessives have always been preoccupied, indeed over-estimated, by how much anyone else cares; it’s a fallacy fatally enabled by the instantly gratifying dopamine mills of Twitter and Facebook.

“We all suffer from attention bias,” says Ben Page, chief executive of market research firm Ipsos Mori. “We pay attention to things that interest us and we think that everybody else is like us, and that’s just not true. Only about one in four people in the UK even look at Twitter and only about 4 per cent of people really tweet on Twitter, so it’s a bubble of people who are interested in things talking to each other. But even if you analyse what people are actually talking about on there, you’ll find that celebrities and football massively out punch politicians, by a factor of hundreds… Things like microaggressions, cancel culture – most people are just not paying attention to this stuff. More people say that they don’t know what ‘woke’ means than think it’s either pejorative or positive.”

For progressives, the folly here may be twofold – not merely spending time and energy on arguments nobody is paying attention to but arguments in which no victory is possible.

“With the culture wars, those debates about statues, symbols, trans rights, imperial history, the progressive edge of liberal opinion – the reason why right-wing politicians talk about it is that it helps cement an electoral alliance between older working-class poorer people and wealthier middle-class younger people,” says Page. “It unites social conservatives whatever their economic interests. So, crudely, yes – progressives are better off not taking the bait. Building a vision of the future – that’s what the centre-left has to do.”

Page notes that certain policies in Labour’s 2019 manifesto, such as nationalising the UK’s railways and utilities, were very popular with the same voters who nevertheless awarded a landslide majority to the Conservative Party in that year’s general election. The lesson there, perhaps, is that leadership matters. Labour was led at the time by Jeremy Corbyn who, along with his more ardent online cheerleaders, seemed determined to embody every stereotype of the performatively progressive left as peevish, pessimistic, vindictive, humourless and obscurantist.

All political parties attract a cohort of the blindly dogmatic, ideologically demented and/or palpably deranged. As the Republican Party in the US has recently demonstrated, a takeover by the fringe need not, for at least some conservative parties, be an obstacle to winning power – possibly because conservative parties can anchor such aberrations, to an extent, to assumptions that they are, at heart, stolid, sensible, law-and-order types.

For progressive parties, which cannot lean on any such reassuring stereotype, their zealots and headbangers present more of a problem: they generally need to be kept as far from policy, leadership and the public as possible. That isn’t easy in an age where social media has issued a megaphone to any yahoo who wants one. But it might be the case that, if cannily marshalled, the energy of online enthusiasts might be productively directed.

“I don’t think identity politics is necessarily bad,” says Tessa Szyszkowitz, UK correspondent for Profil. “It has a huge potential for renewal of political participation, especially for progressive parties that are now in such deep trouble.”

Szyszkowitz cites a recent essay by Wolfgang Thierse, former president of the Bundestag and a veteran Social Democratic Party politician. Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, Thierse expressed exasperation with modern identity politics. “His argument was that it would be better to close the gender pay gap than change the language to include these gender-aware forms,” says Szyszkowitz. “But I don’t see why progressive politics can’t do both: nobody who is for gender-aware language is against closing the gender pay gap.”

The person who has benefitted the most from tuning out the noise is presently occupying Earth’s most powerful office having been elected to it last November by one of Earth’s most rancorous electorates, after easing serenely through the primary of a proverbially quarrelsome party.

“Biden won the Democratic primary because he understood that Twitter isn’t real life,” says Brian Klaas, associate professor in global politics at University College London, Washington Post columnist and author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power And How It Changes Us. “Social media provides a skewed slice of the core voters who you need to win elections. Mostly, Twitter-based activists are much further left than the rest of the party. Democratic activists in the extremely online progressive movement were baffled by how Biden could break out when all of their feeds were full of Warren and Yang supporters. Biden understood that the core of the Democratic Party is not those people who are tweeting 50 times a day about issues that simply aren’t backed by the majority of the voters in Democratic primaries, let alone the general election.”

In April 2021, after President Biden addressed a joint session of the US Congress, hapless Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz thought he’d hit upon a brutal and damaging indictment of Biden and all that he stands for: Cruz condemned the speech as “Boring but radical”. Right there, in what could become Cruz’s most useful legacy, he inadvertently bequeathed progressive politicians the world over with a standard to aim at – and perhaps a slogan to campaign with. Certainly, if the president’s staff haven’t already ordered quantities of “Biden 2024: Boring But Radical” T-shirts and yard signs, someone is asleep on the job.

2.
Sahra Wagenknecht on…
Shifting the debate on climate change from consuming consciously, to producing differently.

The fact that our planet is suffocating in waste, the climate is becoming hotter and more species are becoming extinct should concern us all. Instead, the climate debate often triggers anger. Not because people don’t care about our future but because many feel it is dishonest to frame an urgent discussion on how to save the environment as a debate about lifestyle.

The current discussion, about “doing without” and targeted price increases, is an elitist one. People who live in abundance might find satisfaction in doing without certain things but to believe that these lifestyle changes are the key to saving our planet is to fool our-selves. If politicians prioritise this new way of life with carbon taxes, higher meat prices and surcharges on airline tickets, they will achieve only this: the less privileged will react negatively when the word “climate” is mentioned. People in rural areas, where in some cases there have been no trains or buses for years, will continue to drive their diesel cars to work and to the supermarket, since the chic electric car is unaffordable for most, despite state subsidies. And if you rely on oil heating in a moderately insulated house, and the alternatives are more expensive, then you will heat your house as before but pay more.

The rhetoric is as toxic for the ecological climate as it is for the political one: to speak of subsidised electric suvs while railway lines are discontinued; of flight-shaming while new free-trade agreements bring in food and goods that could be produced locally from far corners of the globe. Proposals for climate policy are often absurd: plastic cutlery and straws are banned while plastic packaging becomes more voluminous; we argue over whether the internal combustion engine should be banned from 2025 or 2030, even though it’s the trucking industry that is primarily responsible for our failure to meet climate targets.

Rather than consume differently, we should produce differently. Our economy must become more regional, less polluting, more resource-efficient. We need products that last and can be repaired. This is not achieved through lifestyle but legislation that forces manufacturers to extend their warranties. For now, nationwide supplies of green energy are not possible and the recycling of dead batteries is an unsolved problem. It would be better to put pressure on manufacturers to make cars with 2- or even 1-litre engines, than to spend taxpayer funds on promoting Teslas with heavy chassis and large batteries.

When our consumer goods are fully recyclable our energy sources are renewable and our aircraft are fuelled by clean hydrogen, then we can drive, fly and buy as much as we want. But to get there, we need incentives for technological solutions that make production more efficient and more compatible with people, the environment and the climate.

This essay is an extract from German politician Wagenknecht’s book ‘Die Selbstgerechten’ (‘The Self-Righteous’).

3.
Nic Monisse on…
How communities can forge a sense of social cohesion through these 10 basic characteristics.

Resilience is a buzzword used to describe everything from personalities to businesses to cities. But what does it mean in reference to neighbourhoods?

In this context, it’s a place with strong social ties, economic opportunity and a healthy environment. These qualities ensure that communities can survive and thrive in peaceful times and pandemics. With this in mind, here are 10 basic attributes that every neighbourhood needs to do just that.

1.
Locally owned businesses

This is especially important when it comes to the essentials – the butcher, the baker and the greengrocer – so the community never goes without. It also provides employment opportunities close to home.

2.
Locally grown food

Community gardens or a connection to nearby farmers and fishermen are key. This ensures that fresh, healthy, sustainable food is readily available at shops or markets.

3.
A community hub

It is essential to have a neighbourhood centre in the form of a high street or town square where residents and visitors, essential services, retail, and drinking and dining options come together. Here, people gather, meet or bump into each other by chance and share news that binds the social fabric.

4.
Green spaces

Parks, gardens and even some wild spaces are good for community health and biodiversity too. Trees and green space also help to reduce urban heat islands, improve air quality and lower stress across all age groups.

5.
Transport options

Cycling and walking should be appealing transport options. Streets need to support their use, so that people can safely stay connected to one another without relying on cars.

6.
Diverse housing stock

To cater for all lifestyles, incomes and age groups, a variety of homes should be available, from smaller apartments to bigger lots for families.

7.
Intergenerational connections

A mix of ages should be celebrated, encouraging diversity of viewpoints and sharing of knowledge between generations. At an organisational level, every age group should be supported and feel their needs are heard by local government and community groups.

8.
Knowing neighbours

Neighbours should know each other, building social ties so that sharing and volunteering, without expecting reciprocity, becomes second nature.

9.
An engaged city hall

Local government should help to establish a common vision for the neighbourhood, with citizen engagement invited in the planning and actioning of goals.

10.
Active local media

A neighbourhood paper or radio station enables people to keep abreast of local events and also to hold city hall accountable.

4.
Robert Bound on…
Why the commute to work is so much more than just moving from point A to point B.

If you were pitching a supersize coffee- table book to a serious publisher you might not go straight in with that long-pondered mix of essays and photography entitled Great Commutes of the World but I’d always have that pitch in my back-pocket, just in case. Fine, you would have laughed at it two years ago, buster, but how do you feel now? If you’ve become familiar with something like this litany of white-collar home-working – up; shower; breakfast; laptop; Zoom; despair; lunch; teams; creeping insanity; supper; box set; bed – then you might fancy a bit of this again: going to work. It sounds so simple because it is. Who knew how easy it would be to fall in love with your daily commute?

The idea of rather enjoying the trundle into work has been eroded over the years by things like busy roads, stifling trains and striking staff (definitely not as in “gorgeous”, neither as in wafting a left hook in their general direction). The gentle habit of whistling as you walk to the bus-stop has also been poo-poo’d by technology companies who want you, your data and your subscription cash to be owned by them and their too-good-to-be-true offer of amazingly productive workdays that start at nine and finish at four, complete with a lunchtime tennis lesson and some “mindfulness breaks” somewhere in between.

The Zoom Kool-Aid has been drunkenly guzzled by companies keen to slash their overheads while watching their staff shrivel like grapes in a May frost – all live via video-conference, of course. Look closely, though, and the commute has subtle pleasures and solaces all of its own; a rhythm like the seasons; an expectation of the familiar that allows musings on the exotic; the simple satisfaction of being in motion and in company that shows a year spent counting steps around a local park to be the thin gruel that it is. The answer this time around, now that the old ways seem new, is to refresh them further. Take the scenic route. Pimp your commute.

There are tactics and strategies to making the most of the time that you might otherwise think you’re wasting. But there’s also a philosophical distance one can place between time spent not doing anything specific and time that is wasted. The two are not the same. Of course, like the creative director of this magazine, you might choose to spend your journey working your way through every single Maigret novel in order. Or you may choose to delve into the specific world of cookery podcasts, if you can bear to be ravenous all over again by the time you reach the office. You could get up five minutes earlier and catch the quieter carriage or rise an hour earlier (it’s summer, guys) and walk more of the way than you normally would. Do this on the way home and you’ll soon find a gallery you’d never heard of, a shop that just easily sold you that impossible anniversary gift or an enticing pub bathed in the golden light of evening.

It’s not all roses, of course. There will be many instances that don’t make it into that coffee-table book. There’ll always be the girl telling you about her awful date on speakerphone or the guy whose warm bum seems intent on caressing your cheek as he takes his case from the luggage rack, but this time around – own it – turn the other cheek to his in the knowledge that it could be an altogether better bottom tomorrow.

And at the end of it all? Unlike just working from there, you get to go home.

5.
Ellen Dunham-Jones on…
How the change of use in suburban spaces during the pandemic is expanding conversations worldwide about the ‘15 minute city’.

When Zooming replaced commuting, many American urbanites’ disdain for the suburbs morphed into a panicked desire for more spacious living. Wealthier households competed in bidding wars for anything in the closer suburbs along commuter train lines. The less affluent stretched their budgets for mass-produced houses further out on the “exurban” fringe. It wasn’t only families needing more space who moved. With businesses, bars and meeting places closed, lots of young adults traded pricey apartments for cheaper suburban rents. But in many regions the end of the pandemic is in sight. As city schools, businesses and amenities reopen, will suburbia’s prominence be a mere 15 minutes of fame or has the pandemic reshaped it?

To answer this question, consider the changes in pre-war suburbs and exurbs. Early in the pandemic, single-family houses transformed overnight. Garages, spare bedrooms and walk-in wardrobes were converted into home offices, wi-fi classrooms and quarantine zones, serviced by an endless stream of delivery vans. Pavements and paths filled at dusk with residents replacing their commute with a walk or cycle. Pop-up bike lanes appeared and some streets were closed to non-resident vehicles and converted into play spaces for children. Parking spaces in front of eateries became “streateries” or “patio dining”. Larger lots hosted drive-in movies, concerts,and religious services, with cars serving as their occupants’ ppe; some lots were even converted to tent camps for the homeless. Loved or hated, these shifts in use are sparking conversations about liveability.

Between the pre-war suburbs and exurbs are the sprawling postwar suburbs. High-income households, a shrinking middle class and most of the American poor all live here but are segregated. Struggles with a shortage of affordable housing, resistance to gentrification and vacant shops were exacerbated by the pandemic for these communities. Because of this, ageing suburbs have seen lasting structural change in the past year. These include regreening; repurposing commercial space as social infrastructure; and rezoning detached housing into terrace housing, cottage courts, small apartment blocks and granny flats for affordability and density.

Even more transformational is the surge of proposals to redevelop dead shopping areas into walkable mixed-use town centres, fill ageing office parks with housing and shops and put more streets on diets, adding space for bikes and pedestrians. More than 250 such suburban retrofits were built before the pandemic and hundreds more are underway, lowering car dependence, improving public health, supporting the ageing population, and creating jobs and water and energy resilience.

Meanwhile, from Paris to New York, mayoral hopefuls campaign on the promise of “the 15-minute city”: the idea that our daily needs should be a 15-minute walk or cycle away. Coined by Carlos Moreno at the Sorbonne university, the concept exploded during the pandemic as cars gathered dust and streets filled with pedestrians and cyclists. Moreno’s golden rule is that every square metre should enable multiple activities. This could be a gamechanger as we choose between the 15-minute city, 15-mile commute or 15-minute suburb.

Dunham-Jones is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of ‘Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia’ (Wiley, 2021).

6.
Michael Scott on…
Greece’s relationship with travel, adventure and tourism has been shaped by more than just mythology.

The ancient Greeks were immersed in tales of travel. At the heart of their epic tradition, Homer’s Odyssey is a story about voyaging around the world. Their mythology too is littered with adventures to mystical lands in a quest for hidden wonders (think of Jason and his search for the Golden Fleece). But what about travel in daily life? Did the ancient Greeks go on summer holidays? And if so, where?

Socrates, the famously intransigent philosopher of ancient Athens, was no traveller. In one of Plato’s Dialogues, Socrates seems to poke fun at himself: “You never went out from the city to a festival, or anywhere else, except on military service, and you never made any other journey, as other people do, and you had no wish to know any other city or other law but were content with us and our city.”

Inherent in this self-critique is the idea that it’s good to expose oneself to different cultures, systems and ways of doing things. And in ancient Greece that wasn’t hard to do. Rather than one country, ancient Greece was a patchwork quilt of more than 1,000 city-states, each with its own laws, political systems and traditions. As a result, going from one to another was like going from country to country today. Indeed, in ancient Sparta, even someone from the next village was considered a xenos (foreigner), meaning that international travel started on leaving the city boundary.

But in ancient Greece, travelling further afield than the next city or two was not that easy. There were no tour wagons to leap on or ancient cruise ships to join. Instead, you had to buy your passage on a trading vessel that was criss-crossing the Aegean or wider Mediterranean to get around (hardly the ideal start to a holiday). And sailing was not without its perils. Death at sea from drowning was considered the most ignominious fate an ancient Greek could suffer. And then there were the pirates that cruised the Med, particularly around Magna Graecia (southern Italy and Sicily), always looking to raid a trading vessel and rob those on board.

But some things did tempt Greeks to make the effort, particularly trips to important religious festivals and major religious sanctuaries. Most months at Delphi, people came to consult the Oracle; and every four years to take part in its athletic and musical competitions. But they also came to sight-see Delphi’s ornate, monumental Sanctuary of Apollo. Euripides’ tragic play, Ion, written in the 5th-century bce, opens with a group of tourists at Delphi, agog at the statues inside the sanctuary. “Look! come see,” says one. “The son of Zeus is killing the Lernean Hydra with a golden sickle. My dear, look at it!” In later times, there were even tour guides, just like today, hanging around the sanctuary, offering to take visitors on a tour of the monuments. (It’s thought the most important monuments were marked with numbers in case you only had time for a whistle-stop tour.)

Cultivating its mythology as the centre of the entire world, Delphi increasingly became a meeting point for travellers coming from different directions. Plutarch, a philosopher and priest of the temple at Delphi in the 1st century CE, records his meeting with other philosophers, one coming from the UK on his way to Tarsus in Asia Minor and another from the Red Sea en route to Sparta.

Travelling to the Olympic Games was probably the largest congregation of ancient Greeks, with about 40,000 making their way to Olympia. Not that it was exactly a stress-free holiday. Taking place in August under the fierce Greek sun, these tourists had to bring with them – or hire there – everything they needed, including animals to sacrifice to the gods, food and tents to sleep in. Imagine the din caused by these people and their animals, camped on the dusty, dry ground around Olympia for a week. Add to the mix no drainage or sanitation and a wide range of sweaty running, wrestling and boxing competitions. Then there was the barbecuing of more than 100 oxen for divine and human consumption. This was the Glastonbury of ancient Greece.

Plato went to the Olympics and famously could not find a tent to hire. The philosopher Epictetus wrote of the experience of being at Olympia: “Are you not scorched? Are you not pressed by a crowd? Are you not without comfortable means of bathing? Are you not wet when it rains? Have you not abundance of noise, clamour and other such dis-agreeable things?” Perhaps grumpy Socrates was right after all: staying at home was the better bet.

Scott is director of the University of Warwick’s Institute of Engagement and a professor of classics and ancient history.

7.
Tyler Brûlé on…
Why it is crucial to recognise the importance of social capital when gauging quality of life.

Very often it’s the little things that remind us why life is a bit better in other places. These tiny events or established customs can stop traffic as visitors from afar come to a juddering halt and look around in amazement. Anyone who’s been to Japan and wandered the streets of Fukuoka or Sapporo in the early morning will be familiar with the sight of six and seven-year-olds walking to school on their own. For parents from places where this daily exercise in self-sufficiency vanished long ago there’s often a sense of bewilderment (“How can children so young be allowed to roam free in one of the world’s biggest cities?”), envy (“I wish I could send my kids out the door on their own and gain a headstart on my workday or an hour in bed”) and loss (“Well, that’ll never happen”). And therein lies the problem: maintaining or restoring social capital is not only a dying political art, it also comes with unpalatable costs and confronting some unfashionable though necessary truths.

When gauging liveability in cities big and small it’s easy to be seduced by the number of independent cinemas, amount of green space, quality of healthcare or investment in infrastructure. But it’s also easy to forget that daily pleasures come with having a social climate where, for instance, children are given a degree of autonomy and there’s little appetite for interference from newcomers. These are places where a shopkeeper can leave pots of flowers out overnight with little fear of theft or a bicycle can be rested against a shop window and the owner can be quite sure it’ll be there when he comes out with his groceries. In much of Japan this is standard; in parts of Switzerland, Finland and Denmark it’s still the norm and in rural areas, where there’s often a high degree of trust and easy accountability, social capital still runs high.

But what has happened elsewhere? Why has social capital eroded in so many otherwise-liveable cities? Could it be that citizens of entire nations have been conditioned to shun responsibility for themselves and others? Is there discomfort or fear that comes with explaining how things are done because one might be branded a bully or racist? Cities that rank highly in social capital tend to be places where there’s not only a respect for rule of law but also unwritten codes of conduct for specific communities. In simple terms it’s about “reading the room” and behaving accordingly. Of course, this is easier said than done – especially when the codes have all but vanished and half of society feels done wrong while the other half is constantly looking for cause of offence or outrage. The good news is that there are benchmarks and behaviours that point us in the right direction. A visit to our winning cities offers up a few clues.

To hear more from Brûlé, tune into ‘Monocle on Sunday’ on Monocle.com/radio and sign up to receive the Weekend Editions newsletter at Monocle.com/minute.

Open days

Connecting with the landscape
Vilnius Plaza, Lithuania

Many cities in former Soviet states have developed rapidly over the past 30 years – and Vilnius is one of them. Here, neighbourhoods are regularly reimagined and revitalised. And at the heart of one such development – a mixed use site in the centre of Lithuania’s capital – is a plaza by Martha Schwartz Partners. Tasked with breathing life into the burgeoning development, the landscape architects have created a public space that takes visual cues from the surrounding landscape.

“We were inspired by the shape of [the city’s] castle on a hill – Gediminas’ Tower,” says project landscape architect Ceylan Belek Ombregt. “The iconic tower and hill represent the progression, culture and history of Vilnius.”

The result is a square with undulating planters that mirror the nearby hill. These design choices are complemented by water features that introduce sound and movement. It also entices people to walk through it thanks to connections with new buildings and the warren of residential streets that surround it. It is a combination that ensures the new plaza has been lively from the outset while still grounded in the existing fabric and vernacular of Vilnius.

The elevated approach
Haifa Bridge, Israel

Communities in Haifa are often cut off from one another by roads with fast-moving traffic. This, coupled with the hilly terrain in the northern Israeli port, means that walking between lively neighbourhoods and major civic institutions, such as famed university Technion, can be unpleasant. Enter Rolka Studio and Schwartz Besnosoff Architects, which won a competition to design a new entrance gate for the institution by designing a grand pedestrian bridge instead.

Bringing together two existing yet disconnected pathways – one linking to the city centre, the other to the university’s historic heart – the architects worked with the terrain to create a gentle promenade that feels like a natural part of the landscape rather than an infrastructural afterthought kowtowing to the car. It also entices passersby to stop and enjoy views over the bay.

“[The result is] a dynamic platform that has become a new focal point for the campus,” says project architect Omri Schwartz. “It enables people to host events and explore the potential of a new connection with the city.” In short, it’s not just a bridge but a public space that doubles as a much-needed connector of Haifa’s urban fabric.

The meeting point
Kitaya Park, Tokyo

A couple of years ago, Kitaya Park in Shibuya was a sorry sight. What was once a charming pocket of backstreet greenery had become a storage facility for bikes. Now the park has been given a makeover and brought back to life with fresh plants, plenty of seating and a Blue Bottle Coffee shop with an outdoor terrace and space for a food truck.

“We wanted to create a place where people could gather, meet and use the park however they like,” says project manager Yu Kawai from Tokyu Corporation, which oversaw the transformation. “We also took advantage of the natural slope to build bench seating.”

Tokyu paid for the overhaul, with an additional grant from Shibuya, and teamed up with architects Nikken Sekkei and advertising agency Crazy Ad. Blue Bottle Coffee worked with architect Keiji Ashizawa to give its wooden building a suitably earthy interior (note the volcanic ash-glazed tiles). Although this park is privately run on a 20-year contract by Tokyu and its partners, public rules apply, which means that there’s a ban on big corporate signage. It’s a welcome addition to the neighbourhood.
shibuya-kitaya-park.tokyo

The opener

Moveable feasts
by Carlo Silberschmidt

A new player is entering the slow-food movement in Switzerland. Spotting an opening for a new service using mountain tracks made obsolete by the Gotthard base-tunnel, which cut journey times through the Alps, rail operator Südostbahn has launched Treno Gottardo. The emphasis on board these copper-coloured trains is to drop the pace, savour the views and now enjoy snacks and drinks in a bistro area with vending machines that offer Swiss wine and beer. The result is genuinely slow food thanks to a train that’s determined not to take the quick way from A to B.

Law of words
by Andrew Mueller

When the politicians of Australia’s Northern Territory seek to impugn each other in parliament, they may no longer deploy the word “incompetent”. The term has been forbidden by house speaker Ngaree Ah Kit after a member took offence.

At the risk of giving Ah Kit ideas about other words to ban, we think it’s ridiculous. Some politicians are incompetent and their peers should be permitted to say so. Besides, in more rumbustious legislatures, it’s a minor infraction. In the past year alone:

1.
Taiwan’s combustible legislators pelted each other with pig guts in a row over pork imports.

2.
Tunisian mps were injured in a bench-clearing dust-up over labour practices.

3.
Ghana’s army had to intervene to stop mps maiming each other during the lively election of a new speaker.

Speaker Ah Kit’s edict also risks undermining Australia’s particular tradition of parliamentary repartee, in which an amount of knockabout demonstrates humour and passion – both desirable qualities in a leader. Fight on, we say.

Just my type

The small borough of Bierstadt in Wiesbaden, Germany, is hoping to go global after Microsoft said that it would replace Calibri as its default font. One of the new candidates? A font called, you guessed it, Bierstadt. The announcement prompted local design agency Q to create T-shirts and posters set in the new typeface. With slogans such as “Better than Georgia and Monaco” (chiding previously popular Microsoft defaults), it’s a lesson in being bold and capitalising on opportunity.

Correspondent’s corner from…

Athens
by Daphne Karnezis

Moving back to Athens after 10 years in the UK, I’ve found myself missing the simple pleasure of a picnic in the park. Whether it’s down to the sweltering heat come summer, proximity to beaches or a thriving café and bar culture, Athenians have never been ones for settling down on a patch of grass. So it was a peculiar and nostalgic sight when I recently spotted Eleftherias (“freedom”) park, next to Athens Concert Hall, covered with people sharing beers, reading books or dozing under the shade of a tree.

Though the sudden shift is in part due to people getting creative during the pandemic, it seems that this welcome habit has persisted, despite bars having reopened.

The city’s recent initiatives to make its parks and squares friendlier (and more bearable during the heat) have undoubtedly helped to convert Athenians into park lovers. After plans lay idle for years, mayor Kostas Bakoyannis has also recently restored some of the city’s landmark fountains to their former glory. They inject some coolness to a city that’s infamous for being one of Europe’s most densely populated.

As well as mainstays such as Philopappou and Lycabettus hill, the Greek capital has been gaining an increasing number of green spaces outside the centre, from the sprawling Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre to plans to revitalise Antonis Tritsis Metropolitan Park, the huge space in the city’s west.

But Athens is looking inwards too. Building on the efforts of several grassroots initiatives, three new “pocket parks” converted from abandoned and unloved plots have added some much-needed greenery to the inner-city neighbourhoods of Kypseli, Pagrati and Kolonos. It’s only the beginning – and I, for one, am ready to start cooling down as temperatures rise.

Trash fiction

In the past year, libraries in Michigan, Minnesota and Florida have been criticised for throwing away books and contributing to the 640,000 tonnes of tomes that end up in landfill every year. Communities in the US seeking a fix would be wise to turn their gaze to Ankara, Turkey. There the city’s sanitation department collects books destined for the tip and shelves them in a dedicated library for discarded publications. So if you’re stateside and tossing up between a career as a librarian or refuse collector, why not take a leaf from Turkey’s book and do both.

Above board

Monopoly’s Community Chest cards are getting a refresh this autumn. Voted for by fans, the new cards will reward everything from shopping locally ($200) to cleaning up paths ($50). In a real-estate game where the goal is to force your opponents into bankruptcy, it’s nice to see some value attached to civic engagement. After all, developing property shouldn’t only be about cash rewards.

Correspondent’s corner from…

Canberra
by Aarti Betigeri

Early in June, I woke and checked my phone: it told me it was minus 4C at 08.00. Outside my bedroom window, my birdbath was frozen over like a tiny ice-skating rink. I had a text from a friend. “Want to visit the new Messina in Kingston tonight?” it read, name-checking the popular boutique gelato chain that has just opened a new shop in the city.

Conditions across Australia during its winter – June to August – vary wildly. Just three hours’ drive away in Sydney it’s pretty temperate and further north in Queensland it’s downright pleasant T-shirt weather. But here in Canberra, about 600 metres above sea level, inland and close to major ski fields, winters provide some serious evening cold.

But in my three years in town, I’ve learnt that there isn’t much that can keep an Australian from top-notch gelato. Even in the depths of winter, queues form outside late-night parlours such as Gelato Messina and Spilt Milk, as people crave a taste of icy goodness with flavours including dulce de leche, strawberry sorbet with marsala-soaked brioche chunks, and Basque cheesecake.

There’s not much space to sit inside, so customers gather outdoors, eating their ice cream while sporting thermal gloves and puffa jackets. You might expect a new gelateria’s business plan to aim for a spring-time launch but a love of gelato runs so deep in Australia that opening in the throes of winter is equally valid.

Of course, apart from the deliciousness, gelaterias bring some much-needed life and colour to Canberra’s streets. For a city that generally chooses function over aesthetic and liveliness in its streetscapes, it is always good to see a throng of people gathered on a kerb, enjoying an after-dinner treat. Even if they are blue-lipped and trembling while they do it.

Urban jungle
by Nic Monisse

Central London is beginning to look a little like the countryside, thanks to Dutch architects mvrdv’s hill structure at Marble Arch, designer Es Devlin’s newly installed forest at Somerset House and hundreds of new planters on Regent Street. For Winy Maas of mvrdv (see here), his team’s contribution comprises 45 mature trees, 25 metres of vertical scaffolding, 2,800 sq m of sedum and lots of sisal fleece blankets. Perhaps it’ll even encourage Londoners to stop fleeing to the countryside.

Bust up

Statues used to be a simple piece of urban furniture but now even the most well-meaning can backfire. Take the London memorial by artist Maggi Hambling celebrating feminist icon Mary Wollstonecraft, which critics decried for its nude “Barbie-doll” figure. Or in Harare where debate is raging around a new sculpture honouring Mbuya Nehanda. Despite it celebrating an anti-colonialist who led a revolt against the British South Africa Company, critics are questioning its cost during a pandemic as well as the first version’s scant resemblance. It might be easier to leave the plinths of the world empty.

Images: 2021 Switzerland Tourism, GNTO/Y, Skoulas; MVRDV; Getty Images.

Hidden talents

When he won the project in 2015, Winy Maas was excited to build the new art depot of Boijmans van Beuningen museum in his home city, Rotterdam. This wasn’t just because he’d save time on the commute; Maas was interested in changing the dynamic of the area. He wanted the building to function as an active part of its surroundings. “An art depot is like a huge refrigerator,” says Maas. “We tried to show how a depot could live with – and deal with – its environment.”

The result is a building that locals have dubbed “the teacup”. Under its rooftop forest, its round, mirrored exterior reflects the skyline of Rotterdam, as well as the green of the surrounding gardens. The 15,000 sq m building will house more than 150,000 pieces of art and design (from Dutch Masters’ canvases to ancient urns), and accommodate curators and visitors.

Work on the project required 300 people – builders, artists and engineers, whose various feats of ingenuity include constructing a huge elevator that can safely transport delicate pottery. The municipality, which owns the land, provided crucial political backing for the project, though it could only afford to fund a conventional depot. Maas and the museum’s two directors worked tirelessly to raise the €25m shortfall. “It was a real collaboration,” says Maas.
boijmans.nl

The Cabinet
(From left to right)

Fokke Moerel Studio director, MVRDV “She’s the project lead.”

Arjen Ketting Associate architect, MVRDV “Heads the team on-site and has lived with this project for seven years.”

Rowan van Wely Engineer, ABT “Co-ordinated the research for the glass for the façade.”

Eric Moleman Director special projects, BAM “Led the team of builders who created the incredible foundations.”

Said Kasmi Deputy mayor, Rotterdam “Managed the political side, negotiating with all the neighbours.”

Ina Klaassen Director, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen “Co-ordinated project – she made it happen.”

Frank Meijer Landscape architect, MTD “Designed the rooftop garden, using some of the country’s largest trees.”

Sandra Kisters Head of collections, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen “Specified technical needs for art storage.”

Sjarel Ex Director, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen “Commissioning client who came up with idea of an open depot.”

Roelof Prins Director, De Verre Bergen foundation “Made the project financially feasible.”

Pim Peters Engineer, IMD “Designed the steel structure and curved concrete construction.”

Marieke van Diemen Artist “Created gravity-defying display cases for the atrium.”

John Körmeling Artist “Created the entrance.”

Rob Wagemans Founder, Concrete “Created the restaurant on the roof.”

Soichi Terada

Soon we’ll be dancing together again. It’s a joyful thought, though it might come with some trepidation for the DJs and producers who’ve been waiting in the wings for more than a year while clubs have been closed. Many will worry that music tastes have changed, that crowds may not like them any more or that they might be rusty. But the best artists have been working on new material and planning to captivate the world again. At least, that’s what Soichi Terada has been doing.

“It’s an exciting time,” says the 56-year-old Japanese house-music producer, who’s renowned for his ear-to-ear smile and euphoric sets that top bills in the likes of Panorama Bar (inside Berlin’s infamous Berghain) and Concrete in Paris. Currently based in Tokyo, he’s working on his first full-length dance album for more than 20 years. “I’m trying to make music in my old style,” says Terada, explaining that the new release, due in autumn or winter this year, will be packed with his stock-in-trade: retro, off-beat house numbers. “I look forward to seeing how people respond to it.”

The album will draw plenty of attention but it should be said that it has taken Terada a while to build a fanbase. Though his wild compositions found some success in the 1990s New York clubbing scene, it wasn’t until the mid-2010s that he began to gain broader recognition. The well-regarded Dutch music label Rush Hour (also behind Terada’s forthcoming release), saw the appeal of the veteran house producer’s back catalogue and released a selection of his tracks in 2015, which quickly launched him into the dance music stratosphere. His on-stage charisma has propelled him ever since; he performs live with an Akai sampler and Korg hand-held synthesiser, instead of simply mixing tracks.

“For me, this music was about trying to recreate New York’s early house-music sound,” says Terada, explaining that he was one of a handful of people in Japan who even knew what the genre was in the late 1980s. It was strange when he was noticed later on, he adds; he had to pick up instruments that he hadn’t touched in decades and entertain a whole new generation of fans.

But his ability to capture the energy of old-school raves is perhaps Terada’s biggest appeal. When he plays live, he can often be spotted wearing Hawaiian shirts and breaking out into wildly creative dance routines that veer towards magic acts. At Amsterdam techno festival Dekmantel, Terada transformed himself into a string puppet that danced to his music on a mirrored stage.

Before he got his due, Terada kept himself busy producing kayokyoku tracks (a precursor to J-Pop) and video-game music. Many will remember him fondly for this; his soundtrack for the PlayStation’s Ape Escape was a favourite among nostalgic millennials and his work with 1980s Japanese pop superstar Nami Shimada (who features on his 1991 dance hit “Sunshower”) remains in circulation. But he’s proud to have finally cut through into the house-music scene. As for getting back out in front of the crowds, “It will be a great moment,” he says. He might have to wait a while longer yet but Terada is well used to biding his time.

Ich bin ein Berryliner

When Sophia Shakhatreh arrives at her strawberry booth in Steglitz, Berlin, she hangs up a blackboard indicating the day’s variety, restocks the piles of strawberry jam and strawberry sweets, and places a little stone (painted to look like a strawberry) on the tray for customers’ change. She also checks the inventory, delivered in the early hours: 59 trays, each carrying 6.5kg boxes of strawberries, totalling nearly 180kg. But what happens with the trays that are left over? Shakhatreh laughs; there are rarely any left after lunchtime.

It’s approaching June and I’m spending my Saturday morning at a sales stand belonging to family-run company Karls Erdbeerhof. In Berlin, late spring is marked by the appearance of Karls’ strawberry-shaped booths, which sell punnets all the way through the summer. Strawberry season has an exultant air in this part of Germany, where it has long been a tradition to go out picking with your family on sunny Sundays. It’s a custom that has assumed epic proportions: Karls operates five strawberry theme parks, complete with berry-bush rollercoasters, strawberry-bear mascots and buildings made to look like enormous fruit baskets. Strawb-mania extends to the streets in these booths. Shakhatreh recalls when she opened on 12 May for the first time this year: “People were euphoric.”

Though far from being Germany’s only strawberry-booth proprietor, Karls is one of its largest. The family’s roots in strawberry farming run back to 1921 but the company was officially founded in 1993 near Rostock by the Baltic coast. It now grows more than 7,000 tonnes of strawberries every year and sells most of them at its 420 booths in northern Germany; more than 300 are in Berlin alone.

The popularity of the booth design (now used by many of Germany’s strawberry vendors) is also down to Karls. Inspired by stalls at the UK’s Wimbledon tennis open, the founder’s father, Karl-Heinz Dahl had a boat-maker create 15 of these now- unmistakeable sales points, from which he sold the family crop directly.

Among the customers, there are those who recognise that all strawberries look the same and those who value the illusion; a young man in pink running shoes asks Shakhatreh to select “really pretty ones”. Suddenly, an elderly lady in a camel-coloured coat greets Shakhatreh heartily. “I buy a kilogram every day,” she says. Her children, she adds, always ate strawberries from their grandmother’s garden in Ontario, Canada, and claim that Karls’ strawberries taste exactly like grandma’s. You can tell she is Canadian; she is a little jolly for a natural-born German. But judging by her fealty to Karls, she’s a Berliner through and through.

Images: Shutterstock