Issues

Art of the game: How softball is bringing New York’s museums together

Central Park’s scenic Heckscher Ballfields are filling up with what look like regular amateur softball players. On closer view, the odd team names on their shirts merit a double-take. What are the Mets doing here at 19.00 playing against Solomon’s Sluggers? Or the Blue Chips against a team sporting portraits of Whitney Houston? This is New York’s Arts and Museums League, which is made up of staff from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, Gagosian and the Whitney Museum of American Art, respectively.

Art-world softball has a long history: the league has been running on and off since the 1940s. It’s a counterpart to the Broadway Show League, which takes place during the day to accommodate actors’ schedules. “We try to make it work,” says Nicholas Rinehart, a Metropolitan Opera administrator who plays for the Pitch Hitters. “A few weeks ago, one chorus member played half a game and then got in an Uber to go get into costume.”

As the reigning champions, the Pitch Hitters’ schedule restraints clearly haven’t held them back since joining the league two years ago. “When we play, our heart is in it,” says Avo Asencio, a retired security guard who picks up shifts in the bag check to remain eligible for the team. It helps that the opera’s stagehands are beefier than the average museum curator.

Institutional identities translate subtly onto the field. Players from Gagosian, one of the world’s leading art galleries, wear personalised jerseys, caps and socks. They play hardball too: in a recent game, a security guard executed a dramatic dive into first base and had to be escorted to hospital with a dislocated shoulder. In contrast, The Highlanders, from the High Line, look slightly scrappier in their grey cotton shirts. “It’s a lot of finding people at their desks and saying, ‘Come on, come play,’” says team captain Jordan Benke, the High Line’s director of art exhibitions. “With new hires, my urge is to test how well they catch.” He has about 100 colleagues from which to draft; the Met has a recruit pool of 2,000.

But whoever bats the best, the real achievement is to level the playing field in a famously highbrow industry. “We have electricians and engineers, chorus members and actors,” says Reinhart. Now, when “Go, Van Gogh!” is chanted from the bleachers, New Yorkers know not to look for a Dutchman. It’s just Moma’s Starry Knights rooting for a home run.

If education is only about earning, what happens to learning?

Education should be about the sharing and passing on of knowledge, the pursuit of truth. It’s supposed to teach us how to be civilised and moral. But what was meant to be a resource owned and shared by a community has been slowly fenced off by profit-seeking interests. Today the state largely decides what is taught, by whom and how. It is done so in an increasingly privatised, commodified and financialised manner. What should be a conversation about a public good, something that we all have a right to pursue, has become an industry obsessed with economic output, creating jobs and advancing careers. Far from forging curious minds, it is depleting people’s creative imagination. How did we get here?

Historically, all of the great thinkers about education, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill, framed it as a means of liberating the mind and making good citizens. In the UK, that ethos persisted into the 20th century, reiterated in a government report after the First World War, in the Butler Education Act of 1944 and in the Robbins Report of 1963. Successive governments insisted that the purpose of an undergraduate degree was to teach students how to think, not how to make money.

Then, in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher sought to exclude school subjects that weren’t geared to the labour market and declared that universities should be corporate enterprises run by business-folk, not academics. In 1992 the UK’s colleges for vocational training (“polytechnics”) were converted into universities and universities were reoriented to serve the needs of industry and the economy, rather than intellectual refinement.

Bit by bit, the curricula in all levels of schooling have been revised to cater to the perceived needs of the labour market. The process has become a treadmill, rather than a suitable education for the marathon of life. The tests implemented in those years and more recently are designed to give young people “credentials”, instead of teaching them anything more meaningful. In my book, Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons, I diagnose a pandemic: “examinitis”.

Education that pays

This educational illness continues untreated and politicians are still playing along. When Rishi Sunak was British prime minister, he said that any degree that didn’t result in increased earnings was a “rip-off”. Another recently deposed PM, Keir Starmer, promised that his party would “modernise the curriculum so that it better prepares students for the world of work”. The latest, Andy Burnham, has gone further and said that secondary schools should change their curricula to suit the needs of local employers. A report prepared by Alan Milburn, a former cabinet member, suggests that courses that don’t yield an economic return should be abandoned. What folly.

In the UK – as in the US and elsewhere – the industry has deserted education in its classic sense, as depicted by Rousseau, Jefferson and Mill. The humanities, arts, philosophy and history are fading, their demise rationalised on the grounds that they don’t yield high monetary returns. Young people receive more years of schooling than any generation before them but are emerging with a shallower grasp of history, literature, civics or culture. Deep reading has collapsed.

Meanwhile, teachers and academics are demoralised and in meltdown. There is a persistent shortage of teachers, not because not enough can be recruited but because droves quit citing low pay, unpleasant work conditions and an inability to pursue their vocation. Many schools now rely on temporary staff supplied for short-term posts from agencies, paid a fraction of the salary of regular teachers. They are often unsure where they will be teaching next or even what they will be teaching. This destroys the ethos of schools as integrated communities – try mustering school spirit and pride in such circumstances.

The situation is even worse in universities, which are required to compete for students and the revenue they bring. More academics are on short-term contracts and more are being culled. In 2024 alone, at least 4,000 academics in the humanities, the social sciences and the arts have been made redundant.

Foreign finance is feasting on what’s left. A Chinese company recently took over England’s oldest school, Thetford, set up in 631, whose most famous pupil was 18th-century philosopher Thomas Paine. After asset stripping, it was declared bankrupt in early 2026, then closed. Having been part of the fabric of our society for hundreds of years, it was snuffed out by someone looking at a balance sheet in Hong Kong.

Outsourcing universities

Another symptom of decay is that universities are outsourcing their teaching. Today many students are gaining qualifications from seemingly reputable institutions without ever setting foot inside them. Universities are contracting out to private “franchised” providers, paying them about three-quarters of the tuition fee and pocketing the balance for rubber-stamping degrees. These providers are driven by profit and that means what one CEO calls “no frills” courses. He told the Financial Times that he had no qualms with his business model being compared with budget airlines and discount supermarkets. This is a denial of what universities were always meant to be – a community of scholars learning from each other.

For all this tumult, it’s not too late to rescue and revive the educational commons. Unchecked, the decay will be accelerated by AI, which is heightening the threat of scary-sounding ideas, from “knowledge collapse” to “cognitive surrender”.

But studying and working in education has given me optimism about our capacity to recover. However, it will require a concerted transformational response, which is why the new government should set up an independent national commission for the revival of lifelong learning.

Education and the ideas that underpin it need to be retaught. Rediscovering Rousseau, Jefferson or Mill might not advance the economic situation on a ledger for private-equity investors – but that is the point. Some things – such as thinking for ourselves – are rather more important than profits.

As AI reshapes the job market, a new trove of apprenticeships is in demand

Apprenticeships are back on the agenda. In June, Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, signed an agreement with Germany’s US ambassador to learn from the country’s approach to bolstering vocational training. Meanwhile, the UK’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, is said to be seeking similar reforms and the Chinese government has urged young people to pursue blue-collar careers to help overturn a centuries-old stigma against vocational training in favour of academia.

This isn’t an ideological shift. There’s a pressing need to fill labour shortages. The skills gap in the US will leave as many as two million manufacturing jobs unfilled by the early 2030s. Add to this the threat that artificial intelligence represents to the job market and you’re left with a peculiar situation: graduates with no jobs, while manufacturing and trade positions are vacant. There’s also the matter of job satisfaction. There’s a feel-good factor to traditional apprenticeships: in the UK, research has shown that young adults on such training schemes have the highest levels of happiness and life satisfaction in their age bracket.

To find out what’s motivating the next generation, Monocle meets some of the apprentices embarking on these schemes – from trainees in Tokyo’s cobbling district to aspirant plumbers in Zürich – as well as the masters guiding their way. We find that learning on the job offers not just fresh skills but also enormous job satisfaction.

Teppei Yoshimi
Shoemaking
Tokyo

After Kobe-born Kenta Miyamoto graduated from secondary school and completed a course at a local shoemaking school, there was only one place where he wanted to study next: Rendo in Tokyo’s Asakusa district. “I have always enjoyed making things,” says Miyamoto. “It feels natural to create something with your hands.” In school, I learnt about Rendo’s technique. It’s the most renowned leather shoemaker in Tokyo and I wanted to work there.

When Monocle visits the shoe brand’s shop, we find Miyamoto working under the instruction of Rendo’s founder, renowned designer Teppei Yoshimi. The shoemaking master has himself been on a long craftsmanship journey – he began as a pattern maker, before starting to repair leather shoes in his shop and then creating his own Oxfords, loafers, monk straps and Tyrolean suede shoes. Pairing classic British silhouettes with Japanese tailoring methods, he earned an enviable reputation for his skilful patternmaking. It was this that inspired Miyamoto to seek out a position under Yoshimi. “I have learnt a lot from him about pattern design,” says the student. “One day I want to develop my own style too, also learning from Europe’s traditional shoemaking culture.”

Despite Yoshimi’s success and Miyamoto’s enthusiasm, the outlook for Japan’s wider craft sector isn’t particularly rosy. In step with elsewhere in the world, Japan’s shoemaking schools have fallen in number. In 2000, Asakusa, Tokyo’s traditional shoemaking centre, had three schools with 70 students graduating a year. Today just one remains, with fewer than 20 students.

In the world of luxury fashion, however, provenance and skilled craftsmanship remain highly sought after. Japan’s shokunin (artisan) culture is defined by a patient commitment to perfection, making the country’s craft products desirable to high-end brands seeking to differentiate their products from those of their competitors.

This has emboldened Miyamoto to broaden his career aspirations. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his application to train under a European shoemaker. Though that means Yoshimi will lose a helping hand in the workshop, the master is supportive of his young apprentice’s ambitions. “He needs to get out there and learn,” he says.

Reto Stähli
Plumbing
Zürich

“In 2025 we had more apprenticeship applications than we could accommodate,” says Reto Stähli, the co-owner and managing director of Swiss plumbing and heating service provider Stähli Haustechnik. Based just outside Zürich, Stähli’s apprentices learn everything from how to provide maintenance services to how new-build housing projects come together.

Interest in his firm remains consistent. “Last year we had more than 100 applications,” he says. “It was quite remarkable. I advertised on two or three job platforms again and the response was incredible.”

When Monocle meets Stähli, he is training one of his recruits, Hakim Beloukarif, in the intricacies of kitchen piping. Beloukarif is among the 70 per cent of teenage Swiss school leavers to opt for an apprenticeship following compulsory education – something that sets the country apart from other wealthy nations. There are more than 200,000 apprentices in training in Switzerland and about a third of all companies here offer training programmes of this kind.

Every year, Stähli’s team welcomes an average of four new apprentices. “Some professions are disappearing – in large companies such as banks and insurance providers, they have been using AI telephone systems for a long time,” says Stähli. “There are fewer service counters too. People will have to reorient themselves somehow.” Stähli believes that there will long continue to be a healthy appetite among the younger generation for experience at his type of business. “There are many people exploring the prospect of a career in the construction industry. This kind of labour still has a future.”

In countries where apprenticeships aren’t as widespread, employers often fear making financial losses by taking on new starters. Stähli has a pragmatic approach to the issue. “We have to train young people,” he says. “They are our future.”

Tim Phillips
Boatmaking
Sorrento, Australia

A 90-minute drive from Melbourne, boatbuilding business the Wooden Boatshop is an epicentre for apprenticeships. “We are flooded with requests from people who want to work here,” says its director, Tim Phillips. A shipwright who was himself once an apprentice, Phillips set up the company in the Australian seaside resort of Sorrento more than 40 years ago. Since then, trainees have travelled from far and wide to study with him, including those from the US, France and the UK. “We build everything by hand, from the wood for the shell to the sails and upholstery.”

With a rise in digital work, craft-led skills now have an appeal that goes beyond mere job security. At the age of 40, Andrea Rothwell is halfway into her four-year apprenticeship in sailmaking and upholstery. “I wanted a career change,” she says. “I had an e-commerce craft-supply business and a small shop. I grew up around boats and sailing most of my life, so the Wooden Boatshop was on my radar.” Others echo her enthusiasm, including Tim’s son, Will Phillips, who is also part of the business. “It’s a creative outlet,” he says. “You think about complexity and see things progressing – with everyone contributing – and in the end, you have a boat.”

Tim says that the latest technology has a place in his business but not in the workshop itself. “We use AI in the office, because it helps us with admin and daily tasks,” he says. “But it can’t be used for work on the floor.” Tim walks Monocle out onto the latest addition to his facilities: a 13-metre-tall boat storage shed by local architecture practice March Studio. A façade consisting of hundreds of weathered-steel rhombuses tinkles in the wind.

The Wooden Boatshop’s influence extends beyond its buildings. “We are the largest business of our kind in Victoria,” says Tim. A handful of smaller businesses have started up around the state in recent years, some run by his former apprentices or workers. “We trained them,” he adds, with a smile.

Lisbon’s Beato and Marvila neighbourhoods are finding new life as cultural hubs

On a warm evening in east Lisbon’s Beato neighbourhood, the terrace at Casa Capitão fills long before the night’s programme begins. The city’s creatives brush past each other in the former military-supply complex. Today visitors have come to eat octopus carcaça sandwiches, see an exhibition or take part in the book club that spills onto the terrace. Others are here for a performance by Brazilian singer Julia Mestre, after which the basement dancefloor will welcome a noticeably younger audience.

There’s no sign of any of this activity from the street. Architect Miguel Marcelino, who revitalised the building before it reopened last year, gave it no single main entrance. Instead, navigating from room to room requires moving between stairs and courtyards, always in the open air. Inside, the rooms are used for all kinds of functions. In the venue’s first year, it has hosted Australian writer McKenzie Wark, American poet and musician Saul Williams and Portuguese musicians Capicua, B Fachada and Linda Martini.

Casa Capitão is the latest project from Cultural Trend Lisbon (CTL), the team behind acclaimed (and sadly now closed) nightclub Musicbox. The new space has given CTL a larger home after almost two decades in Lisbon’s Cais do Sodré district. With tourism and transient events reshaping that neighbourhood, the organisation wanted somewhere with a different rhythm. “Cities need places of regular encounter, not just festivals,” says CTL’s co-founder Gonçalo Riscado. “People come because of the programme here. Tourism hasn’t reached us yet.”

CTL’s move mirrors a wider shift. Adjacent neighbourhoods Beato and Marvila were once Lisbon’s industrial heart, home to soap, match and rubber factories that were shut down during the deindustrialisation of the riverside in the late 20th century. The area was abandoned for decades but it has recently been undergoing change faster than almost anywhere else in the city.

A short walk from Casa Capitão, there are new residents on the quiet Rua Capitão Leitão. Neighbours rather than competitors, the galleries here – including Francisco Fino and Bruno Múrias – co-ordinate exhibition openings, encouraging visitors to move from one spot to the next.

Among the arrivals is Módulo Twist, which was opened in 2024 by visual artist Luis Carballo and curator Maria Assunção Albuquerque. The couple were collectors before entering the industry. “I’m still an apprentice gallerist,” says Albuquerque, with a laugh. The gallery name nods to Lisbon’s pioneering, historic Galeria Módulo; the “twist” reflects how the gallery also houses Carballo’s own atelier, as well as the welcoming approach with which the duo host visitors.

Rather than chasing established names, Albuquerque backs the artists she believes in, among them Portuguese ceramicist Sandra Lori and Spanish sculptor Iván Prieto. In September, the gallery hosted an exhibition of work by Galician Tatiana Medal, part of a programme that the pair see as a bridge between Galicia and Portugal.

As well as the presence of Carballo’s studio inside the space, the gallery’s modular walls are adapted for every new show. Regulars, says Albuquerque, are always intrigued to find the room refreshed. The building wears its history: a mansard roof holds apartments at the top, while the ground floor now belongs to both Galeria Módulo Twist and another painter’s atelier, Coletivo Amarelo.

Continuing east, Rua do Açúcar is named after the sugar factory that once stood here. The buzzy street is the backbone of Marvila’s revival. The former warehouse, which belonged to Portuguese film director António da Cunha Telles, now houses the Paulo Claro Theatre, while the Portuguese Contemporary Ballet Company’s HQ is next door. At the end of the street, on Praça David Leandro da Silva, wine warehouses have been reborn as 8 Marvila, a complex of shops, galleries and restaurants.

Nearby is Underdogs, its grey, concrete exterior punctuated by a small poster that hints at what’s inside. The gallery was founded by street artist Vhils and Pauline Foessel. They set up shop here in 2013, when the neighbourhood was still lined with empty warehouses, and helped to establish Marvila as a destination for contemporary art.

While urban art remains at the core of Underdogs, its programme has steadily expanded to include modern artists from Portugal and abroad. This month the gallery is taking a different approach. Instead of unveiling a finished exhibition, Portuguese artist Ana Malta will transform the space into a working studio. Visitors will be invited behind the scenes as new paintings gradually take shape. “People usually only see the final result,” says Sara Eugénio, the director of Underdogs. “Here they will be able to witness the creative process.”

Away from the hubbub of Marvila’s main streets, the yellow shipping-container-turned-waterfront kiosk Lamiré overlooks the Tagus. Since 2023, it has served the artists, cyclists and residents who gather here on the riverbank with cold beers and poke bowls. The three founders – Diogo Roque, Eduardo Moita and João Pintão – are friends who met while surfing. “The kiosks by the river are mostly for tourists but there was nowhere really made for locals,” says Roque.

Behind Lamiré is Prata Riverside Village, a development by Italian architect Renzo Piano that is turning the former Braço de Prata munitions factory into housing. Its curved ceramic façades evoke the sails of the ships that once crossed this river. The last of the residences should be completed later this year. The transformation of this area, it seems, is not finished quite yet.

Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Museum reopens after renovation, with its original vision restored

Xavier Salomon landed in Lisbon nine months ago to become the director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum but the dark-oak bookshelves in his office are still empty. “I keep joking that I’ve been living out of boxes because the focus has been entirely on the museum,” he says with a smile. Rome-born Salomon arrived in the Portuguese capital from the Frick Collection in New York, tasked with overseeing a major renovation. “It’s a huge honour and responsibility to reshape a museum for the next 50 years,” says Salomon. “There isn’t going to be another redo of the Gulbenkian anytime soon so you have to think carefully about everything that you do. It’s part of a legacy.”

Opened in 1969, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is a modernist masterpiece in Avenidas Novas, just north of the city centre, set within capacious landscaped gardens, woodland and ponds. The museum houses the private collection of the namesake Constantinople-born Armenian businessman, collector and philanthropist who made his fortune brokering deals between European interests and oil companies in the Middle East. In almost every deal he secured himself a commission, which earned him the nickname “Mr Five Per Cent”.

Gulbenkian was thought to have been the richest man in the world when he died in 1955. In his will, he stated that his fortune should be used to establish a foundation in Lisbon (where he lived in his final years) to improve its citizens’ quality of life via art, education, science and charitable work. Today, the campus includes the foundation’s HQ, with a 1,200-seater auditorium that is home to the Gulbenkian orchestra and choir. There’s also an art library, modern-art centre and the museum itself, ensconced by lush greenery and water features.

When Monocle visits, the museum’s team is completing final touches before reopening the doors after a 16-month renovation. It’s a sunny morning and a queue of a few dozen people forms outside, eager to explore the revamped institution. “This project was all about restoring the original vision for the museum, while upgrading the technical infrastructure – lighting, ventilation, security and the displays,” says Teresa Nunes da Ponte, one of the architects who led the renovation. “Over the years, the museum had several interventions and we wanted to strip it back to how it was intended; to let the materials speak for themselves and treat the architecture of the building as an art piece in itself.”

A key moment came when the team found photographs from the 1970s of the museum in its original state. With no paint on the walls, the building’s materials – warm wood, cold stone, bronze and glass – shine through. “There are no hard corners,” says Nunes da Ponte. “As you move through the exhibition, you can peek at what’s coming next. Now, it’s not just about the physical space; we are almost restoring the museum’s original atmosphere and feel.”

The renovation was already halfway through when Salomon joined the museum so any input that he had needed to be added quickly. He had two clear propositions: the first was to keep the windows as unobstructed as possible to maintain a relationship between the interiors and the gardens; the second was to bring back the European galleries’ green carpeting. The latter choice wasn’t merely aesthetic but also to help provide a different feel as visitors crossed between rooms and to reference the vibrant tones of the garden. “There’s this idea that carpets are old-fashioned and ugly but as soon as I started to see it laid down, I knew that it was right,” says Salomon.

The museum reopened to the public on the same day that the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation marked its 70th anniversary. “When it was decided that we should do a renovation, it was important that it was done soberly and elegantly,” says the foundation’s president, António M Feijó. The literature and humanities scholar believes that the institution’s discreet nature is its greatest strength. “I always like to say that our museum is a ‘cold’ institution – not a ‘hot’ one – meaning that we should let the objects shine by themselves,” he says.

The museum is home to more than 6,000 objects, with 1,000 making up the permanent collection. The pieces span Egyptian antiquities, Islamic art and the work of European old masters; Chinese porcelain, sculpture, tapestries and jewellery. “The collection is finite and we can’t add anything to it because it’s based on what the founder collected,” says Feijó. “He personally chose every piece. It all had to be in mint condition and he never failed in his appraisal of items. His taste was impeccable.”

One of the biggest transformations comes at the end of the museum, when you turn into the René Lalique Room, which houses the largest collection by the jeweller outside of his native France. The cabinets are curved in a nod to the art nouveau and art deco turns of Lalique’s work. “We have on display his best piece of work, the ‘Dragonfly’ corsage ornament,” says the museum’s head of collections and senior curator, Luísa Sampaio. She is the longest-serving member of staff, having started as a receptionist in 1989. After seeing many other changes made in the past, she was apprehensive about the renovation but her doubts dissipated once work began. “There’s an enormous cohesion between such diverse areas and cultures,” she says. “In all of them, we have recovered that original ideal of the 1969 museum. I think that the public won’t be disappointed.”

As staff line up to welcome the first visitors, Salomon stands by the door. In lieu of a speech, he offers a handshake and a smile to everyone as they enter. “As a director, I’m just shepherding the place and making sure that everything works,” he says. “The public are the real owners.”

Celebrations of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s 70th anniversary continue through 2026.
gulbenkian.pt

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‘Diana’ by Jean-Antoine Houdon
Paris, 1780

“This is a masterpiece by the French sculptor, a statue of the goddess Diana. It’s as if she has just come in from the gardens. It’s the only single object that has a room by itself and that area captures the entire essence of the museum because you have the work of art, the architecture and nature through the window.”

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Mosque lamps
Egypt, Mamluk period, after 1321

“The glass lamps are one of the areas of absolute excellence in the museum – we have this group of about 10 mosque lamps from the Mamluk period. It’s the most important collection in the world of these objects in terms of quantity, quality and historic importance. When you see an entire room of them, with the light shining through the glass, it’s incredibly overwhelming.”

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‘The Ship of Fortune’ tapestry, from ‘Children Playing’ by Giulio Romano and Nicolas Karcher
Mantua, 1540-1545

“This is a museum where decorative arts have huge importance. These tapestries were incredibly intricate to make. They are between 500 and 600 years old, in impeccable condition and incredible to look at. They are among the items that set this museum apart.”

Inside Hamar Atriumhus – one of Scandinavia’s most admired architectural templates

Along the green banks of Mjøsa, Norway’s biggest lake, industrial railway and timber town Hamar offers a lesson in the country’s architectural history. An hour and a half north of Oslo, it’s home to contemporary wooden villas, modernist apartment blocks and 19th-century period buildings. These sit alongside landmark structures such as Pritzker Prize-winner Sverre Fehn’s masterful Storhamarlåven museum building and Snøhetta’s Rådhus (Town Hall). It’s also the setting for a less obvious yet equally important example of Norwegian architecture: a low-slung wooden Atriumhus. This building typology, which was developed in the late 1950s, perfectly exemplifies the ideology, material use and design principles of the Nordic nation’s mid-century modernism.

On a secluded plot, the residence is part of the first set of atrium houses constructed in Norway. It was designed by Norwegian architect Are Vesterlid, a contemporary of Fehn and a professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, who lived in the building until his death in 2013. The unassuming structure, made of local pine and spruce, is a masterclass in egalitarian architecture. Deeply connected with Norway’s mid-century, left-leaning intellectual community, Vesterlid rejected the era’s bourgeois tendency for architects to design exclusively for wealthy clients. Instead, he championed a human scale of affordable architecture that suited the daily life of the building’s user.

It’s an approach to practice that appealed to the home’s current resident, Hamar-based Scottish architect Gary Parkes. His first encounter with the house came after a decade working for local practices on premier Norwegian builds he serendipitously found the property when it hit the market in 2014. Walking past the hidden plot on a crisp winter evening, he peered through the expansive glazing and watched the blue winter light filter through the central skylights. “I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck,” he tells Monocle, as we sit down for a cup of coffee under a black Louis Poulsen PH 5 lamp in the open kitchen. “I immediately fell in love with the space and the atmosphere.” Recognising what he calls its “brilliant structural footprint”, Parkes purchased the home directly from Vesterlid’s children, ensuring that the building’s design-friendly stewardship remained intact.

It was a significant coup, given Parkes’ appreciation of the structure’s history. In 1962, Vesterlid partnered with multidisciplinary collective Arkitim, alongside architects Finn Bø and Per Torp Ildahl and interior designers Hans Østerhaug and Edvin Helseth. Together, they drafted a radical neighbourhood master plan. It was intended to include up to 70 prefabricated, highly affordable homes in Hamar; only eight were eventually realised, with four inhabited by the partners and their young families. Dismissed by sceptical mid-century residents who derisively nicknamed them grisebinger (“pig houses”), the atrium buildings have since transcended that early criticism to become some of Scandinavia’s most coveted architectural templates.

The floor plan is organised around a fully enclosed inner courtyard, or atrium, that serves as the primary light source and a private outdoor living space. Enclosing it is a grid-like framework that can be endlessly repeated, giving the home a comforting rhythm. “The structure is timber post and beam,” says Parkes, explaining that the home was constructed in such a way that the frame is not hidden by cladding – a conscious choice by Vesterlid revealing the building’s skeleton to its inhabitants. “The inside of the interior wood panelling sits slightly clear of the frame. It expresses pride in the cuts and materials.”

Indeed, the interiors are characterised by a reduced palette of regional materials: floors of solid, handmade dark brick tiles; walls and ceilings of natural timber boards left unpainted to show the wood grain. Rather than modernising or neutralising the surfaces to make the house look more contemporary, Parkes has preserved its mid-century patina. “I have a busy life as an architect,” he says. “If you want a house to look brand new constantly, it becomes a never-ending job.” Instead, he has chosen to celebrate the gentle marks of time, such as the faint vertical ghost lines left on wooden walls from Vesterlid’s original shelving units or sun-bleached wooden planks on the building’s outer walls.

For Parkes, the living room is the emotional heart of the home, dominated by a sunken sofa and daybed area. Nearby, a long timber dining table is surrounded by Eames chairs. The open kitchen is integrated into the living room, with an island, designed by Vesterlid and Helseth, near the centre of the space. Most technical components, including a cold room, are tucked behind one wall. Everything remains remarkably true to its original form, except for a modern oven. The central ventilation system dates from 1962 and still works so powerfully that the fireplace goes out if it’s turned on. Modern interventions have been executed with patience: a bathroom update took Parkes four painstaking years of design, research and careful installation to match Vesterlid’s exacting standards.

Environmental comfort is achieved through smart, passive design. Fully insulated, draft-free walls are married with electric underfloor heating hidden beneath the brick tiles, keeping the home cocooned when Hamar’s winter temperatures plunge to minus 30C. During summer, deep roof overhangs and a lush screen of native plants – meticulously mapped by Vesterlid in his original landscaping drawings – help keep the home cool.

A defining characteristic of these atrium houses, which reflects the social beliefs of the time, is a sense of communal living, exemplified by the large garden shared by the houses. Here, a powerful neighbourhood camaraderie still thrives. Seasonal garden work and spontaneous summer terrace parties are shared with a creative cohort of neighbours, including Finn Bø’s daughter, who works in film and television, and a pair of Oslo-based architects who use their house as a summer retreat. “The people who have lived in these homes over the decades have had long and happy lives and, instead of a care home, have lived in them until the end, says Parkes. “The way that these buildings are set up encourages a more collective way of living.”

It’s a mindset that means Parkes sees himself as a custodian of something more than just a home. He often hosts architecture students and other architects, sometimes even leaving his front door unlocked when he’s out so that visitors can wander in and study Vesterlid’s proportions. It’s a beautiful gesture of architectural generosity and one that directly honours Vesterlid’s optimistic belief that great design belongs to everyone. The fact that the Atriumhus still attracts such interest, more than six decades after it was built, is a testament to its ultimate lessons: small houses can achieve extraordinary, enduring quality without being expensive; and buildings designed with an economy of materials and a respect for human scale can help us live better and, perhaps, even a little longer.

When Google isn’t enough: Three libraries that are providing fashion creatives with rich, printed archives

1.
The MOP Library, A Coruña
The new home of fashion photography for A Coruña’s growing creative cohort.

Ever since the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation moved into A Coruña’s disused docks, the old concrete jetties and buildings have grown increasingly lively. “People never used to come here,” says architect Elsa Urquijo, who was entrusted with the transformation. “They’re coming back now.”

A former warehouse has become a focal point in the city after Ortega Pérez – daughter of Inditex founder Amancio Ortega and the group’s non-executive chair – turned it into an ever-evolving cultural centre to house the foundation’s HQ, exhibition space, book shop and café.

Recently, a fashion photography library has been opened, encouraging visitors to rediscover the joys of offline research. It contains more than 5,500 rare books and magazines, including original brand catalogues from the 1980s, full collections of titles such as System and Interview (Herb Ritts’s Madonna cover from 1990 is a highlight) and various editions of Vogue. Browse the floor-to-ceiling shelves and you might also come across rare monographs signed by John Galliano and Richard Avedon, along with a copy of Flair from 1953.

“We started editing books for our exhibitions and it went very quickly from there,” says the MOP Foundation’s director, Leticia Castromil, as she turns the pages of a vintage magazine while wearing cotton gloves. “We wanted to create something that people could connect to after visiting the exhibitions. A more private kind of moment, where you can delve deeper into the works of the photographers many of us hear about but might not recognise.”

For her, looking at great photography in a beautifully designed book is more intimate than staring at an image on a wall. “It made sense to have a space just to hold books,” she says.“Creativity still starts with the page.”

The collection began with a major acquisition from private collectors and has continued to grow through further purchases carefully selected by the Foundation. The plan is for the library to grow by 200 titles a year and to create a space where anyone can visit, request a journal and browse it on site.

Ultimately, the MOP team see the space a way of bringing high fashion and culture closer to the Spanish seaside. It has helped that A Coruña is already home to Zara owner Inditex and, unlike every other port city in the country, attracts thousands of style connoisseurs every year. “Even if you don’t work in fashion, you end up being attuned to it here,” says Castromil, who has been a resident of the city most of her life.

The imposing architecture adds to the experience: the library is perfectly cylindrical, taking the form of the silo from which it was constructed. Inside, the rest of the world fades away; the building’s solid structure ensures a natural hush. When Monocle visits, a young woman lingers at a stack of The Face magazines (the library has a complete set), while another young browser flicks through a 1988 Galliano catalogue. Everything around them falls into darkness. Other people are shadows.

The design is typical of the stark, unfussy style for which Urquijo is known. “We wanted to make it honest nothing to hide, nothing pretending to be anything else,” she says. “Just a focus on the books. The architecture reflects the city itself, she adds. “People say that we are at the end of the world and isolated by mountains – we are a little more inward, more calm, more discreet and we always look to the sea.”

Urquijo draws on these qualities in her work, creating a sense of detachment and the feeling of a world within a world. But the foundation is intent on connecting A Coruña with the rest of the planet and establishing it as a different type of fashion capital – one where students can create at a slower pace, photographers can host world-class exhibitions of their work and professionals can find time for creative research. “The city is in a really lively moment,” says Castromil. “Our young people are more and more interested in non-traditional work. They see how you can really make a career in art and fashion.”

It’s why the foundation has been working with the Royal College of Art in London to offer students funding to develop personal projects. It has also been raising the bar when it comes to its own exhibitions. “We have shows that have never been done before,” says Castromil. “We can’t bring over an exhibition that was just in Paris. That wouldn’t be interesting.”

Doubts, a show about Italian photographer Paolo Roversi (best known for his work for Vogue and Vanity Fair), runs until 20 September; an exhibition spotlighting David Sims, the British photographer who helped shape the visual language of the hedonistic 1990s in the pages of i-D and The Face, will open later this autumn. “It has to be really special because we want to draw people to the area and give them the chance to discover the city while they’re here,” says Castromil.

The foundation’s plan to bring A Coruña “to the world” is clearly working. Whenever you visit the MOP Centre, you will find gaggles of schoolchildren, tourists and local creatives converging on one of the hulking cement blocks that make up the building. Inside the library’s reading room, there’s always someone quietly browsing the catalogues, cracking the spines on decades of work by Richard Avedon and Steven Meisel or exploring the best of Juergen Teller. “For so many people, seeing this kind of brilliance up close, looking at the work, turning the page and then returning to it that experience is just not the same online,” says Castromil. “It makes the world feel less far away.”

2.
Idea, London
A space for creatives to put their phones away, delve into research and discover rare books.

As a student, Angela Hill would roam the halls of Zwemmer – an art and photography bookshop in London’s Charing Cross Road – to take notes, gather inspiration and make a wish list of everything that she wanted to buy. “They knew that I couldn’t afford anything but they let me hang around,” she says. “I knew every book back to front and, when I could save up, I’d go back and buy a few things.” Hill, a photographer, went on to open her own bookshop, Idea, in the 1990s, along with her husband, David Owen. It occupied half a room of 101 Wardour Street but has since taken over the whole building.

Today, fashion and art students from around the world visit Hill in her Soho base to research their next collection or find fresh references. When Monocle visits, Makx Sperber, a womenswear student at Central Saint Martins, is flipping through the latest catalogue by design duo August Barron. “Being here makes you feel a certain way and get more curious,” says Sperber. “If you want something more out of your education, research is part of that and here I can look at anything, from a Miu Miu lookbook to museum-grade artefacts. Everything feels precious.”

Over the years, Hill and Owen have worked with thousands of students and can spot the best ones – they’re naturally curious, have their own interests and usually start visiting Idea before their tutors have given them an assignment, they say. Like Sperber, a young Jonathan Anderson was also an Idea regular during his student days. “The minute that he got the job at Loewe, we received a huge order,” says Owen, with a smile.

Idea is now open to the public so anyone can browse the collection and have a chat with Hill or Owen – provided that you can spot the discreet signage and buzz yourself in. “It’s very social,” says Hill. “We have our regulars, our fans, people who come in because they feel lonely and here they can have an espresso and a conversation with someone.” Idea also encourages lingering, with biscuits on the table, lounge music in the background and a no-phone policy.

Such spaces are important resources for fashion designers, art directors and photographers who want to produce original work and expand their research beyond Google. Hill often receives briefs from creative directors (looking for anything from 1970s countercultures to communal living) and goes on to select relevant books for them. “I research for myself all the time so I love doing that,” says Hill, who sources books from places such as Ebay and Spitalfields Market. “You’re sharing the excitement and the energy of discovering an interesting book with other people. My best find was a series of Women’s Wear Daily bulletins with Bill Cunningham photography and the Yves Saint Laurent 1980 collection on the cover. It’s a lot of visual research but it can lead you to the stories of the art directors and the photographers behind the images.”

Conversations with the creatives who visit Idea to research might also lead to new print projects, executed through Idea’s publishing arm. It’s a one-of-a-kind ecosystem that takes you back in time: here, working relationships meld into friendships and projects aren’t purely driven by commercial interests. It’s a place where the best creative work still happens offline.

3
Library180, New York
An invaluable reference library and archive for the fashion community.

Nikki Igol, an image researcher and archivist who has worked with make-up artist Pat McGrath and other fashion and beauty heavyweights, started collecting magazines when she was 10 years old, living in the suburbs of Detroit. Now in her forties and based in New York, Igol continues to add to that collection, which currently comprises some 4,000 works. After storing these items in her home for years, she and Steve Chaiken, co-founder of creative agency SN37, opened the catalogue to the public with the launch of Library180, a non-profit reference archive.

Igol’s pieces now sit inside an airy library overlooking the East River where anyone is welcome to visit by appointment. Stepping inside the space, which brims with old copies of The Face and Casa Vogue, as well as niche publications such as the marijuana-focused High Times, feels like entering a time machine.

When Monocle visits, menswear designer Willy Chavarria stops by with his team.When he tells Igol that he is looking for images depicting nightlife culture, she begins pulling from her collection, handing over out-of-print copies of Blitz and After Dark magazines, and Tod Papageorge photography from Studio 54.“I remember purchasing every single thing here,” says Igol. Most of these images don’t exist on the internet but, even if they did, “you want to digest the image the way that it was meant to be digested – and that includes the surrounding text, the font, the advertisements, even the feeling of the paper that it was printed on”.

Igol dreams of managing Library180 for a while yet before handing the keys to a young, ambitious person who believes in her mission. “I will walk away from this,” she says, “and give it to the community.”

Chef Shinichiro Harakawa models the versatile menswear that will fill your wardrobe this autumn

On the road again
Though Shinichiro Harakawa’s much-loved Tokyo restaurant Beard closed in 2017, it still lingers in the memory of its former patrons. The compact dining spot was highly influential, celebrated for its excellent wines and use of Japanese ingredients, as well as Harakawa’s unconventional approach to hospitality. There was a daily menu but the chef would often simply ask what customers felt like eating (his seared steak was always irresistible).

He went on to open The Blind Donkey in Tokyo’s Kanda neighbourhood, before moving to Unzen, a small city an hour’s drive south of Nagasaki in Kyushu. He was drawn there by the quality of the region’s produce; meeting organic farmer Masatoshi Iwasaki, who was growing 80 different types of indigenous vegetables, sealed the deal. “No restaurant in Unzen was using his vegetables,” he says. “So I decided to open my restaurant here.” His instincts paid off and diners were soon coming from far and wide. Earlier this year, however, he announced that he would be closing Unzen Beard in August. In no time, every seat was booked. His fans – Monocle included – eagerly await his next chapter.

Stylist: Akio Hasegawa
Model: Shinichiro Harakawa
Groomer: Norikata Noda
Producers: Ryo Komuta and Takahiro Kawata (Rhino Inc.)

Two new restaurants to have on your radar: Adam Albin in Stockholm and Odo East Village in New York

Adam Albin
Stockholm

Chefs Adam Dahlberg and Albin Wessman have cooked together for more than two decades. In April they re-emerged as Adam Albin in Norrmalm, the historic heart of Stockholm, overlooking the Royal Palace, Royal Swedish Opera and Swedish Parliament.

The three-level space, which was designed by Swedish studio Halleroed, effuses warmth courtesy of dark walnut panelling and a black-and-cream checkerboard trim in the lounge.There, a vinyl player and drinks trolley strike a smart note, alongside softly arched windows, white tablecloths and a built-in wine display. Contemporary Swedish art, selected by gallerist Magnus Karlsson, hangs throughout.

Among the kitchen’s creations are bread-crusted langoustine with parsley butter and artichoke, mussel rice with grilled pikeperch and whey sauce, squid and morel stuffed with ramsons.
adamalbin.se

Odo East Village
New York

According to Japanese chef Hiroki Odo, New York’s dining scene is increasingly moving away from long tasting menus in favour of a more casual set-up. His answer to this shift is Odo East Village, a space designed by Shinichiro Ogata that reinterprets the traditions of kaiseki – Japan’s most formal dining style – through the warmth and conviviality of an izakaya snack bar.

Odo East Village retains a multi-course structure but presents its dishes as shareable plates based around the binchotan grill. In the intimate 24-seat dining room, guests create their own kaiseki menu, moving between bluefin tuna, Hokkaido uni-topped tofu and braised wagyu tongue. In the spirit of playing with traditional Japanese dining concepts, soy sauce, panko and miso are not on the menu.
odoeastvillage.nyc

Further reading: Monocle’s complete travel guides to New York and Stockholm

The commute: Cycle through Mexico City with Tatiana Bilbao

Tatiana Bilbao, an award-winning Mexican architect, is known for her nature-led approach to design in projects such as the Sea of Cortez Research Center aquarium in northwest Mexico, which combines concrete with vegetation near the shore of an ocean estuary. It’s little surprise then that she opts for a green commute in her native Mexico City – one of the world’s most congested capitals. Monocle meets Bilbao as she completes her daily cycle to her office along the city’s celebrated Paseo de la Reforma.

Tell us about your commute. First, what brand of bike do you use each morning?
I’m currently riding one made by American brand Specialized. Over the years, I’ve changed from a regular bike to electric.

Is the car ever an option?
Our garage has only bikes and motorbikes in it – nothing else. In terms of transport [beyond my commute], I am a pedestrian first. I try to walk, use public transit or bike in every city that I go to. The only time that I really have to change this is when I take a taxi to the airport – or drive from New York to New Haven.

Does cycling help set you up for a good day?
For sure. I like to feel the fresh air on my face as I cycle through Chapultepec Park, which is near my home, where I start my ride. Paseo de la Reforma has a lot of traffic and it’s sometimes closed by protesters. So it makes me smile that I can pass through it very fast.

What’s your choice of clothing for the office? Do you have a uniform?
I don’t think that I have one. But ask anyone and they will say that it’s black.

You mentioned seeing protesters on your way to work. Would you say that politics and your daily work as an architect are connected?
My grandfather was an architect who then became a politician. He was a true democrat in the traditional sense of the word – he was pro-community and understood that the better off we are as a collective, the better we will be ourselves.

Looking ahead to the projects that you’re working on, are there any that you expect to make an impact on daily life in Mexico City?
We’re designing all the stations for Mexico City’s Cablebús Line 4. It’s an 11.4km elevated transit line that is under construction in the city’s south – we’re very excited.