Issues
Chanel, Translator and About present three new arts & culture magazines to add to your stack
1.
Arts & Culture Magazine, Chanel
In this launch issue, Swiss critic Hans Ulrich Obrist muses on the relationship between art and technology, while US photographer Roe Ethridge creates sumptuous still‑life shots of objects that once belonged to Gabrielle Chanel. Throughout, creatives are asked, “What comes next?” It’s a question that we’re eagerly asking of Chanel’s magazine production team too.
2.
Translator
“This is a way of platforming excellent writing from across the globe and giving English‑speaking readers a different frame of reference,” Charles Emmerson, Translator’s editor, tells Monocle. Highlights from the first issue include pieces on penguins in Patagonia and Donald Trump’s executive order to make English the official language of the US.
translatormag.co
3.
About
“Its references are the 1970s and 1980s, when architecture was political and magazines were cultural projects,” says Alessandro Valenti, editor in chief of Hearst Magazines Italia’s hefty new publication About. The bilingual Italian and English title features photographs and blueprints of projects such as a Mexico City Pilares civic centre.
aboutplatform.com
Find out more about the titles that should be on your radar on The Stack, Monocle Radio’s weekly show about print media.
RECENT EPISODES OF THE STACK
Other Circle blurs fashion, design and culture in Copenhagen
Design intersects with a host of disciplines: ask Silas Adler, the creative director of new design salon Other Circle. “We feel that these boundaries between creative disciplines are dissolving and the way that we engage with culture is shifting,” he tells Monocle. The platform’s first event debuted alongside Copenhagen’s design week earlier this year, to showcase how design, art, music, food and fashion often overlap. It featured more than 50 participants, including local food institutions Atelier September and Noma Projects, as well as Berlin-based Lotto Studio and Reidar Mester, Stockholm-based Joy Objects and Italy’s Meritalia. Adler’s background in the fashion industry (he founded streetwear brand Soulland in 2002) might explain his desire to do away with the rule book.
Why create a showcase that blends so many different disciplines?
We felt that there needed to be a curated exhibition experience that highlights creative culture beyond disciplines. We need these platforms to happen within design week, within fashion week – at these moments, there should be a platform that can be a catalyst for upcoming designers to be in the room with established furniture brands and fashion labels, and next to artists, chefs and people who don’t even put labels on themselves.
How did your experience in the fashion industry lead you to co-create this showcase?
We often put boundaries on ourselves creatively. That was, perhaps, one of the toughest things when I worked in fashion. But creatives are questioning the old models and pushing for something more connected, more alive.
If the boundaries are dissolving, why are there still labels such as ‘fashion’ and ‘design’?
It’s harder for the people selling the work to explain it without a label. But for people consuming creativity, it’s all the same. If you have a great meal or listen to a great record or see design that you really enjoy, it’s the same neurological experience.
othercircle.com
Achielle shifts European bikes up a gear with custom, luxury frames
Peter Oosterlinck and his brother, Tom, are steering their third-generation family business, Achielle, back to the front of the continental peloton. “When my grandfather Achiel started building frames in 1946, there were about 250 companies in Europe doing the same,” says Peter. “By 2000, there were only four.” The cause of this decline? Cheap Asian imports of steel bicycle frames. Rather than go toe-to-toe on price, the Oosterlincks changed gears, deciding to construct entire bicycles using high-quality European-made parts and accessories, including Brooks England saddles and Busch & Müller headlights from Germany.
“We went from making 30,000 frames annually and supplying some of the biggest companies in Europe to only 800 bikes in 2007,” says Peter. “I didn’t pay myself a salary that year.” Today, Achielle builds and assembles about 2,000 bikes annually and is part of a resurgence of European manufacturing that places quality over cost. “Bikes are becoming more luxurious so we’re aiming to have a bigger turnover while making the same number of units,” he says. Achielle brazes and welds all its frames in its atelier in Pittem, West Flanders.
It even powder-coats parts in-house, allowing clients to choose from a palette of 30 colours. “Twenty years ago nobody wanted a brightly coloured bike,” says Peter. “Now cyclists want their bike to fit them not only in form but also in style.”
achielle.be
Comment
Cheap imports have left many hankering for the quality of old. Brands such as Achielle answer the call for the local and the handmade.
Read next: These €70,000 bikes are helping German athletes to make faster tracks
The commute: Take the Paris Métro with shoe designer Alexia Aubert
Do you get any time for yourself in the morning?
After taking my kids to school I’ll go to the gym and, when I have time, to Café Marguerite on Rue des Martyrs for breakfast with my husband. I love its buttery croissants. Another spot is Café Varenne on Rue de Varenne, which is a bit more discreet – perfect for a slower breakfast. And there’s always Café de Flore. There’s something timeless about sitting at one of its tables in the morning and watching the Left Bank wake up.
Sitting or standing on the Métro?
I prefer to sit because I often work while I’m commuting.
Are you chatty with fellow passengers?
No, I don’t talk to other people. I actually hate it when people interrupt me.
You must put a lot of thought into your commuting outfit. Best shoes for a Parisian stroll?
They need to balance comfort and elegance: practical enough for long walks across cobblestone streets, yet stylish enough to wear to the office, a business lunch or an evening art opening. Our Édouard Lug Bold is a perfect example: a sleek leather upper, a lightweight but sturdy sole and a versatile design that will take you seamlessly from day to night.
What would improve your commute?
Fresh air. The Paris Métro has its charms but breathing crisp, clean air underground would change everything.
You’ve lived in Paris all of your life. What is the best thing about life here?
The city is bursting with creativity: exhibitions, music, food and design. I never miss Art Basel Paris when it’s on. Throughout the year, one of my favourite places to go is the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris [Petit Palais] in the eighth arrondissement. It has a courtyard garden, where you can take a break. I also love Galerie Perrotin, which feels both accessible and edgy.
And the worst thing?
Endless roadworks, dense streams of cars and trucks, and the brusqueness of people in a hurry. It can make moving across the city feel exhausting.
Is Paris a morning or an evening city?
An evening city. That’s when it comes alive: glowing with lights, the cafés buzzing, the streets shimmering. There’s always a palpable sense of energy, as though something is about to happen. I often head to Classique for inventive cocktails that aren’t overcomplicated. For dinner, I like to book a table at L’Arpaon. It’s delicious and has that mix of conviviality and refinement that I love in Parisian restaurants.
Read next: Monocle’s full city guide to Paris
Bringing Nagasaki’s ghosts to life: Kei Ishikawa on adapting Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel
Eighty years since its end, the Second World War is fading from living memory. Acclaimed Japanese film director Kei Ishikawa explores the aftermath of the conflict and the unreliability of recollections in his new Anglo-Japanese adaptation of A Pale View of Hills, the 1982 debut novel by Nobel Prize-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro.
The book is set in two different eras: Nagasaki in 1952, seven years after an atomic bomb was dropped on the city, and England 30 years later. “I had always thought that this subject was for older generations who had experienced the war,” Ishikawa tells Monocle. “But that generation is disappearing and somehow we have to find our own way to tell the story.”
Ishikawa, 48, whose 2022 film Aru Otoko(AMan) was a critical and commercial success in Japan, had other reasons to be hesitant. “I was aware that Kazuo had written two books set in Japan but he is a big name so I wondered whether I was the right person to make the film.” But Ishikawa was more than up to the task. Engaging and laid-back, he is easy to converse with and curious about the world; he poses for a portrait in the hot sun without any complaints.
A Pale View of Hills focuses on Etsuko, who we meet as a young housewife in postwar Nagasaki and again in 1980s England, where she has settled. She has lost her husband and her eldest daughter, and lives alone with her memories. The logistical challenges of adapting the book are immediately evident: it required not only two period settings but also two locations on opposite sides of the world, not to mention two languages. It helps that A Pale View of Hills has a pair of powerhouse production teams behind it: Japan’s Bunbuku, which works with leading directors such as Hirokazu Koreeda, and the UK’s Number 9 Films, which has produced everything from Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire to Oliver Hermanus’s Living.
Ishikawa was surprised to discover that Ishiguro’s first book had yet to be turned into a film – a sign of the challenge that the material presents. Few Japanese or international filmmakers have tackled the difficult subject of the Nagasaki bomb, which fell three days after the strike on Hiroshima and killed 74,000 people.
For Ishiguro – who was born in Nagasaki in 1954, before moving to England at the age of five – it was a deeply personal subject. The psychological impact of the bomb on a generation of people is the focus of his book, rather than the attack itself. Ishiguro has said that the novel was informed by conversations with his mother, Shizuko, who lived through the bombing. Her memories showed him that war is “not just about big violent conflict – it’s about small everyday lives”.
Ishikawa immediately knew that he would have to make that part of the story more explicit for contemporary viewers. “The bomb is a dark shadow that lurks underneath Kazuo’s story,” he says. “That was obvious to readers in the 1980s when this book was published; people still remembered the war. For audiences now, though, even the 1980s feels like a long time ago.”
The director brought in Ishiguro, who is credited as an executive producer, from the outset. “We had a video call,” says Ishikawa. “I thought that it would just be a matter of saying hello but he was very enthusiastic. He said, ‘Listen, it’s my first book so there are some problems but this is a good direction.’” As well as welcoming Ishikawa’s tweaks, Ishiguro even joked that the director had improved on his youthful novel.
Having swept the board at the Japan Academy Film Prize with Aru Otoko, Ishikawa is now a director who every actor wants to work with. For the leads in A Pale View of Hills, he cast Suzu Hirose as the young Etsuko and Fumi Nikaido as her mysterious friend, Sachiko. Both will be instantly familiar to Japanese audiences. “It’s the first time that they have been in the same film,” says Ishikawa. “There was a good tension between these two top actresses. I loved the chemistry between them.”
In this 80th-anniversary year, with fewer and fewer hibakusha (atomic-bomb survivors) remaining, relaying the horrors of nuclear weapons to the world has become more urgent. “This story is so important to the people of Nagasaki and they wanted us to shoot in the city,” says Ishikawa. “But it looks too different now.” As a result, much of the two-month Japan shoot took place in a studio, followed by a two-week shoot in England. The house that appears on screen is in Hertfordshire, carefully styled as the 1980s home of a woman who had emigrated from Japan.
The film shows us a fascinating montage of photos of 1950s Nagasaki, which might surprise viewers who are expecting to see only despair and devastation. “We wanted to make the movie very colourful because, in Japanese cinema, [representations of] postwar Nagasaki are always about the immediate aftermath of the bomb,” says Ishikawa. “Its people are always shown as poor, hungry and sad. But this film is set in 1952, seven years after the war. The city had been rebuilt a lot and people were wearing nicer clothes. It was quite close to the American base, so a lot of jazz bands had started to play there. A dark shadow is always present but this aspect is something fresh.”
A Pale View of Hills is out now in Japan and is released in France on 15 October, with wider releases next year. Ishikawa hopes that his film will resonate with a younger audience, however distant the events that it portrays might seem. “Our generation might not be able to experience that time,” he says. “But we can still tell the story.”
bunbukubun.com;number9films.co.uk
What to stream, visit and read this month: October 2025 cultural releases
Art
Unicorn: The Mythical Beast in Art
Museum Barberini, Potsdam
Religious icon, LGBTQIA+ symbol or pointy-horned horse with delusions of grandeur? Featuring artworks more than 4,000 years old, this collection explores our fascination with the unicorn.
‘Unicorn’ runs from 25 October to 1 February 2026
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva: Anatomy of Space
Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao
Looking at Lisbon-born French artist Maria Helena Vieira da Silva’s vast abstract canvases can feel like diving under a patchwork blanket. She has also worked in tapestry and stained glass, with an interest in cityscapes.
‘Anatomy of Space’ runs from 16 October to 22 February 2026
Television
House of Guinness
Netflix
Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, is back to rifle through history’s grubbiest pages with the wild story behind Ireland’s most famous export. Set in 1860s Dublin and New York, when Guinness was one of the world’s largest breweries, the series follows siblings Arthur (Anthony Boyle), Edward (Louis Partridge), Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea) and Anne (Emily Fairn), saddled with the family legacy after the death of their father, Sir Benjamin Guinness.
‘House of Guinness’ is released on 25 September
The Savant
Apple TV+
“Is it possible to stop a mass shooting before it happens?” asked a 2019 Cosmopolitan article by Andrea Stanley that profiled an anonymous investigator tracking violent misogynists online. Known as “the Savant”, she had an uncanny instinct for knowing when evil words were about to spill into evil deeds. Her story has inspired this nail-biting series starring Jessica Chastain.
‘The Savant’ is released on 26 September
Mr Scorsese
Apple TV+
Martin Scorsese has contributed so much to cinema history that Rebecca Miller’s plan to shoot a single-part documentary ballooned into a five-part epic, shot over half a decade. How very Scorsese-esque. Miller, the director behind Greta Gerwig-fronted comedy Maggie’s Plan, was allowed unrestricted access to his private archives, plus the time and insights of the filmmaker and his closest collaborators.
‘Mr Scorsese’ is released on 17 October
Film
A House of Dynamite
Kathryn Bigelow
The Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker returns after an eight-year absence with another politically charged thriller, led by Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. The White House scrambles to respond to a missile from an unknown source. Kathryn Bigelow’s clear-eyed lens on geopolitics and knack for action make for a complex look at American exceptionalism.
‘A House of Dynamite’ is released on 3 October
Souleymane’s Story
Boris Lojkine
This socio-realist drama delivers a raw, urgent glimpse into the precarious life of an undocumented immigrant bike courier in Paris faced with only two days to gather the funds for his asylum papers. The film exposes systemic exploitation and fragile hope within a flawed asylum process and an exploitative gig economy, anchored by Abou Sangaré’s breakthrough performance. Boris Lojkine’s unflinching direction expertly balances grit with sensitive humanity.
‘Souleymane’s Story’ is released on 17 October
After the Hunt
Luca Guadagnino
The prolific Luca Guadagnino follows last year’s Queer and Challengers with a psychological thriller. Julia Roberts plays a professor caught up in a scandal when her protégée Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her fellow professor Hank (Andrew Garfield) of assault. Edebiri holds her own against the two A-listers, as Garfield twists his charisma to create a mercurial, menacing presence.
After the Hunt’ is released on 20 October
Music
Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor, vocalist of industrial-rock stalwarts Nine Inch Nails, has become a successful go-to for soundtracks. Last year, sexy electro beats drove his music for Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. Now he returns with his first soundtrack with his band for the latest film in sci-fi franchise Tron. Lead single “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” is pure NIN, its rocky danceability nodding to the films’ futuristic themes.
‘Tron: Ares (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)’ is out now
Interior
Zimmer90
After creating a buzz on social media, German duo Zimmer90 have released their debut album. As its title suggests, the Freiburg-based duo are looking inward, via a selection of gentle songs with melancholic touches. Among the highlights are “Makes Me Wanna Dance”, a delightful piece of bubbly pop, and “Wait for You”, an enchanting 1990s-style electronica tune.
‘Interior’ is out now
The Art of Loving
Olivia Dean
Dean’s dulcet tones, easy-listening songs and warm persona have made her a big hit in her native UK. She has described her sophomore album as a deep dive into the different facets of love. “Nice to Each Other” is an uplifting track about kindness, while “Lady Lady” is a soulful coming-of-age anthem. Next year fans will experience that gorgeous voice on an extensive European tour.
‘The Art of Loving’ is released on 26 September
Photography
Erwin Olaf: Freedom
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Working in photography but not confined by it, Dutch artist Erwin Olaf used his camera to challenge societal norms, advocate for marginalised groups and deliver provocative advertising campaigns while conjuring moments of pure, unadulterated beauty. This first major exhibition in his homeland since his death in 2023 will debut a poignant, unfinished video work.
‘Freedom’ runs from 11 October to 1 March 2026
Books
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
Kiran Desai
India-born US writer Kiran Desai chronicles generational sagas and post-Partition growing pains with cultural sensitivity. This tender epic, which depicts two young diasporic Indians at the start of their writing careers, contemplates the complexities of loving in an era of immigration, displacement and globalisation – and the resulting feelings of loneliness and fragmentation. Desai asks her protagonists whether solitude is necessarily a bad thing.
‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ is out now
It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin
Marisa Meltzer
When Sotheby’s made history this summer by selling a handbag for €8.6m, there was only one item that it could have been – the original Hermès Birkin. Jane Birkin has often been remembered more for the bag that she inspired and her famous relationships than her work as an actress and singer, but this new biography captures both her colourful life and extraordinary creative talents.
‘It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin’ is published on 6 November
Vaim
Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
In his first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023, Fosse navigates the dark waters of a coastal Norwegian town. Here, Jatgeir travels by boat to the city of Bjørgvin to procure needle and thread but returns with a woman – the long-lost love of his younger years. As the story unfolds, relationships become complicated and the stakes higher, and Fosse shows his mastery of the unnerving atmosphere and page-turning plot.
‘Vaim’ is published on 23 October
Jakarta rising: Inside the creative renaissance of a city on the brink
Traffic-clogged, slowly sinking and the centre of anti-government protests, Jakarta is scheduled to be replaced by Nusantara as Indonesia’s capital city in the coming years. But the streets of Southeast Asia’s largest metropolis – home to more than 11.4 million people – are still brimming with life, thanks in part to the efforts of a new generation of creatives and entrepreneurs who are re-embracing their roots.
It’s midday on a Friday in South Jakarta and Siti Soraya Cassandra and her husband, Dhira, have a pond to clean. “There wasn’t any permaculture in this city so we decided to make it,” she says. The couple’s company, Kebun Kumara, is regreening the Indonesian capital, one urban forest or edible garden at a time. In a few months they expect to finish work on the expansive Taman Kota Peruri gardens, their largest project so far.
There’s no shortage of residents to unite with the outdoors here. Following Indonesia’s independence in 1945, Jakarta experienced a decades-long boom and became Southeast Asia’s most populous hub. More than 30 million people now call the greater Jakarta area home but green spaces make up just 4.65 per cent of the city, with an average of a paltry 7.1 sq m of green open space per capita. Even fellow megacity Bangkok has 7.6 sq m per person, while Singapore boasts 47 per cent green coverage.
With architecture firm ARD Design, Kebun Kumara is transforming a 1.08-hectare patch of disused, state-owned land into a public park full of plants from the region, such as scholar trees, lemon basil and pandan. Cassandra hopes that this will be the first of more large-scale projects. “Everybody in Indonesia gravitates towards Jakarta,” she says. “It’s up to us, the people who live here, to make it as resilient as possible.”
In recent months, Jakarta has been the centre of anti-government protests. It is often labelled “the fastest-sinking city in the world”, an unfortunate sobriquet gained thanks to its rapid growth, excessive groundwater extraction and frequent flooding. Coupled with its reputation for gridlocked traffic and the lingering question over its status as Indonesia’s capital, all of this has meant that more people are leaving Jakarta than migrating to it. Last year, for every person who moved here, almost three left. Even so, many young creatives and entrepreneurs are staying or returning home to put down roots. Monocle has come here to spend a weekend with this ambitious cohort of people who are steering the city’s cultural renaissance.
A 10km drive southwest of Kota Peruri brings us to another park, Taman Manyar. This slice of Jakartan suburbia is where Andra Matin, one of Indonesia’s most revered architects, lives and works. For years, Matin has been acquiring the buildings surrounding the park to create a small creative complex. This is nothing new for the architect, who has long sought to transform his home city for the better. “I’ll stay in Jakarta as long as possible to see how it changes because I have hope that it will become a good city in the future,” he tells Monocle.
We pop into Kopimanyar, a café that Matin set up for his workers and visiting design pilgrims. “My staff members like coffee,” he says. “Also, having my kopi [coffee], my house and my office in one place is useful.” Milky brews sweetened with palm sugar in hand, we walk through the building, which transitions from a café into a series of meeting rooms and exhibition spaces. Today it’s calm but in October it will host Bintaro Design District, a biennale that Matin co-founded in 2018 to galvanise the local scene. “Many architects and designers live in the area,” he says. “There were so many art events in Indonesia but none for design. Our festival keeps getting bigger.”
Matin’s house overlooks the park. His work is renowned for its integration of the indoors and outdoors, and his peaceful home exemplifies that approach. Made from exposed concrete and reclaimed ironwood, the structure cleverly allows in plenty of natural light. The only movement comes from dozens of luxuriating cats – Matin and his wife have adopted more than 80 of them and they freely roam the grounds – in between siestas in the park’s sleek, Matin-designed cat houses.
Jakarta might be hard to traverse geographically but it’s a joy to navigate socially. Befriend one person and it’s likely to lead to introductions to everyone they know. Next, we visit I&L Residence, which Matin designed for his friend Henricus Linggawidjaja. The latter is the owner of Artnivora design studio and helps to oversee Art Jakarta, one of Southeast Asia’s biggest art fairs. “This city’s creativity has been growing for a long time now,” says Linggawidjaja. He suggests that we visit the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Museum Macan), which opened in 2017. We tell him that it happens to be where we’re heading tonight – but first we have an appointment with Winfred Hutabarat and Michael Wijono, co-founders of The Union Group, Jakarta’s leading hospitality business. “Ah,” says Linggawidjaja. “[Hutabarat’s] house was designed by Andra too.”
Started in 2008 with a single bistro, the Union Group now encompasses 28 venues. We meet Hutabarat and Wijono over wine and satay skewers at the Cork & Screw Country Club, which Matin also designed. The hospitality group was created with the aim of bringing global cuisines to Jakarta but now it’s opening its first Indonesian restaurant. “The market has matured and locals want local food,” says Wijono. Hutabarat adds that it’s high time the country’s neighbours got to know about Jakarta too. “Indonesians always visit places such as Singapore, Bangkok or Hong Kong,” he says. “It should be a two-way exchange.”
Evening congestion in Jakarta makes fashionable lateness commonplace but our drinks push our tight schedule to its limits. Luckily, Hutabarat is on his way to Museum Macan too and offers us a lift. “There are pockets of great things in this city,” he says as we sit in traffic. “Museum Macan is our window to contemporary art.” Tonight is the opening of Japanese artist Kei Imazu’s first solo exhibition in Indonesia, The Sea Is Barely Wrinkled. The show was inspired by the coast and Jakarta’s history of continuous reinvention – first as Sunda Kelapa and Jayakarta, then as Dutch Batavia, until independence in 1945.
When we arrive, Hutabarat finds his partner, Jun Tirtadji, who runs gallery ROH Projects. “When we started we were pushing a snowball up a hill,” says Tirtadji. “Now it’s rolling downhill. It feels as though Jakarta’s art story has only just begun.” He helps us to find Amalia Wirjono, Museum Macan’s head of development. “This museum’s demographic is young,” she says, as she points out works from the permanent collection. Yayoi Kusama installations and Keith Haring paintings are displayed alongside pieces by homegrown pioneers such as Raden Saleh. “We’re offering something here that Jakartans once had to travel outside of Indonesia to find,” says Wirjono. She introduces us to her sister, Cynthia, who we previously arranged to meet the following day. “Museum Macan is probably our only museum with world-class art,” she says. “But we’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”
Saturday morning starts at Space Available, a community space, café and shop in Kemang that recently relocated here from Bali. Kemang’s lively atmosphere and leafy streets once made it Jakarta’s go-to neighbourhood for expats. However, various misfortunes – ranging from flash-flooding to upticks in crime, followed by the hammer blow of the coronavirus pandemic – caused its star to fade. Space Available’s arrival was a vote of confidence in the area’s revival. The building was originally designed by – who else? – Matin. Sidarta & Sandjaja, a firm helmed by two Matin alumni, has since turned it into Space Available’s striking HQ, whose façade is mottled with cut-outs shaped like fruits of the indigenous kemang tree.
“Space Available is a community centre for self-care,” says music director Aradea Barandana, as his dog, Zissou, patters towards the meditation room. The brand also recycles waste by turning it into homeware and clothing. “We’re here for people who think about the environment and want to make this city a better place.”
Barandana offers to take us to our next appointment, so Monocle – and Zissou – hop in his car for the short drive to fragrance brand Oaken’s HQ. The company is launching two new scents tonight and rain has prompted a last-minute relocation of the DJ decks. “It’ll be fine,” says Cynthia, laughing, as water trickles from a tear in the gazebo.
Oaken’s office above its shopfront serves as a modest home for what is now one of the region’s most exciting fragrance companies, whose soaps can be found in Ombé cafés and 25Hours hotels. In a corner of the shop sits a perfumer’s organ that’s tightly packed with samples. It’s here that Chris Kerrigan, Cynthia’s husband and Oaken’s co-founder, creates the brand’s scents. These make use of Indonesian ingredients, such as patchouli and sandalwood, and are often inspired by local places.
For Chicago-born Kerrigan, Oaken is the culmination of his 20-year love affair with Jakarta. “If you have a vision and want something that you’re not experiencing, you can make it happen in this city,” he says. For Cynthia, the brand is part of her lifelong quest to put the spotlight on her home city. “Everybody comes together to help each other here,” she says. “It’s a close-knit creative community.”
As night falls, we head to seafood restaurant Tide & Table. Its chef, Theodore Darrel, has recently returned home after years in Switzerland and then Bali. “The food scene in Jakarta is ramping up,” he says. “Five years ago a place like this couldn’t have existed.” Nextdoor, Kurasu Kissaten is pumping. At this Japanese-inspired listening bar, more people are drinking coffee than sipping cocktails. “About 90 per cent of the population here is Muslim but everybody still needs somewhere to go for a good vibe on a Saturday night,” says Michael Djuita, whose hospitality venture 20wol funds Kurasu Kissaten. Djuita founded 20WOL after returning to Jakarta from Melbourne in 2014. “People were seeing what was trending abroad and started demanding a better product here,” he says. “That’s where we came in.”
The fund has now supported more than a dozen spots, including Kurasu Kissaten’s sister venue, Hats. There’s a late-night ice-creamery at the front of the latter but step inside and you’ll find young Jakartans knocking back shots. Djuita’s next goal is to attract more tourists and counter Jakarta’s reputation as a staid regional hub for business, not pleasure. “A lot of people who have never visited the city see it in a bad light but it’s not an obvious place – you need to find the fun and the hidden gems,” he says. “Once you do, it’s amazing.”
On Sunday mornings, Jakarta’s main thoroughfares close. Cyclists and runners race down major avenues, padel courts are booked out and cafés fill up. After securing coffee at buzzy New York-style café Billy’s Block, we head west to Rubik Office, an exemplar of adaptive reuse in the Indonesian capital. Esteemed architecture firm Shau retained the original 1990s structure, adding an external envelope, a new floor and a biophilic terrace last year. Tomorrow it will be filled with employees of Indonesia Kaya, an organisation that promotes traditional Indonesian arts and culture.
Jakarta-based Domisilium Studio designed the interiors, which juxtapose traditional Indonesian artwork with pops of terrazzo and calming pastels. “I wanted to create a healthy environment for young people doing creative work,” says the studio’s co-founder Santi Alaysius. Jakarta’s younger creatives are taking up Indonesia Kaya’s goal of ensuring cultural handover between generations with increasing gusto. “More and more young people are relearning Javanese folk dances,” says Alaysius. “They’re finding out more about their roots.”
Alaysius returned to the city after spending about 10 years overseas. “Jakarta is huge but it feels like a kampung [village] where everyone creative knows each other,” she says. When we tell her that we’re visiting Chinatown next to meet artist Metta Setiandi, she smiles. “She’s a good friend,” she says. “Our grandparents knew each other.”
Glodok, Jakarta’s historic Chinatown, is one of its most distinctive enclaves. Fittingly – since we’re in a city where caffeine is sacrosanct – our final stop this weekend is MET, a café owned by Metta Setiandi. Chinese Indonesians have faced persecution since the days of the Dutch occupation and the neighbourhood still bears the memory of those ugly times. MET’s mission is to preserve Glodok’s culture by hosting art shows and organising tours of the area. Setiandi spent years travelling but always knew that she wanted to return home. “You have to think of yourself as a seed, choosing between being in the ground or being in a pot,” she says. “Pot plants can go anywhere but trees need to take root. It’s a slow process but one day a tree will grow and provide shade to people. That’s why I came back.” This city has always shaped its people. Now, its people are shaping Jakarta.
Read next: Monocle’s complete city guide to Jakarta
How Ann Doherty changed city living with a farming collective in Amsterdam
“I had always wanted to farm but I thought that I would have to marry a farmer to do it,” says Ann Doherty, the founder of Amsterdam’s food-growers’ collective Cityplot. It turns out that the city has plenty of agricultural potential – if you know where to look.
Doherty is among the Amsterdam residents developing the idea of edible cities, a concept that fosters urban food production by nurturing neglected plots. “I went back to school to learn how to grow food,” she says from a Cityplot garden in Amsterdam Osdorp. As industrial-scale farming was pushed to the city’s outskirts, the 17th-century tradition of volkstuinen (allotments) endured so that the working classes could feed themselves and sell the surplus. Today, as a national drive to build a million homes by 2030 puts pressure on space, these gardens are tempting a new generation to enjoy growing their own food.
A 10-minute cycle from Osdorp, Doherty’s first initiative, Pluk!, is flourishing. A yearly, means-based subscription allows you to harvest your own vegetables, herbs and flowers; it helps the farmers to earn a minimum wage of at least €18 per hour. We join dancer-turned-gardener Genevieve Osborne as she prunes cucumbers. Momentum is gathering. “People come here for a lifestyle change,” she says. “We meet those suffering from burnout, activists and young families wanting to feed their kids something homegrown and show them how it happens.”
In dry periods, these revitalised green spaces also help to cool the city. On the town’s outskirts, campaigners including Iris Poels want to create a “food park” on reclaimed land in the Lutkemeerpolder. “This is the last bit of fertile sea-clay soil in Amsterdam,” says Poels. “Amsterdam is 750 years old. This work we are doing is for the city’s future.”
voedselparkamsterdam.nl
Read next: Paris’s secret gardens where rooftop re-wilding projects are turning the city green
The architects of Sydney Modern: How SANAA redefined the city’s skyline
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa are the formidable duo behind Tokyo architectural studio SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates). Founded in 1995, SANAA has been an extraordinarily successful partnership. The pair are famed for their light, fluid structures that sit at ease in their particular landscapes. Memorable works, such as the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and the Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne, earned them the Pritzker – architecture’s highest prize – in 2010.
Sydney Modern has established itself as one of Australia’s most ambitious cultural landmarks, a stunning extension of the Art Gallery of New South Wales with commanding views across Sydney Harbour. The project, which was certainly one of the most significant since the Sydney Opera House, has become a testament to the vision of its creators, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.
Their solution for the historic site, which straddles a highway and incorporates two vast Second World War oil tanks and a grass-covered land bridge, is a series of pavilions that cascade down the sloping ground towards the waterfront. It is certainly one of the most ambitious cultural landmarks to open in Australia since the Sydney Opera House almost 50 years ago. SANAA has two other big projects under construction: New Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium in Japan and Suzhou Shishan Square Art Theatre and Museum in China. Monocle speaks to Sejima and Nishizawa in their waterfront office in Tokyo on the day that they are announced as the recipients of yet another award, the 33rd Praemium Imperiale.
How was it working on Sydney Modern during the pandemic?
Ryue Nishizawa: It was the first time we’ve had to work remotely. We were lucky that a member of our team went to Australia before it shut down and she just stayed there. As soon as the country opened up, Sejima-san and I went to visit the project. Seeing it in real life for the first time was an amazing experience.
Kazuyo Sejima: During the pandemic we had regular online meetings with the museum people and more frequent ones with the project team. We met Kathryn Gustafson [who designed the landscaping] in Europe. Somehow it all worked out.
The museum is in a remarkable location, right on Sydney Harbour. What did you think when you first saw it?
KS: Honestly, I was a bit hesitant about the site at first. With the bridge over the road and the oil tanks [that had to be preserved], we weren’t sure. But then we realised that it could be an exciting project. We spent a lot of time talking to the museum about how we could make some continuity between the existing [19th-century] gallery building and the new one. We also proposed turning one of the oil tanks into a gallery and that is now an incredible space.
RN: This peninsula is really beautiful: you have the Opera House, the Botanical Gardens and a big park called the Domain. There were also many historical elements to consider. I wouldn’t say that we felt pressure exactly but we wanted to do something good on one of the most beautiful sites in the city. We thought, “How can we make it better?” It was a good challenge.
How did you come up with this idea for a series of pavilions?
RN: Since the ground slopes down, it would have been difficult to make one big box. We made multiple galleries so that people can go down gradually.
KS: And we fit them between spaces so that people can experience the surrounding topography. They can also walk on the roof, which is exciting. I wanted to design a building that creates new experiences for visitors.
RN: One of the interesting things about this museum is that it’s built in a park. Inside and outside are both public. It’s also a thoroughfare: there are people who pass by every day from Woolloomooloo to downtown.
You [Nishizawa] once said that a museum is ‘more than a place to store paintings’. What is the role of an art museum today?
RN: The primary role is still to show art but recently museums have become more multipurpose. They’re also about learning, research and talks. There are so many events at the gallery – both cultural and business – in the lobby and in the restaurant. That’s a new side to museums; they function more like cultural centres.
Sydney Modern is the first museum to be given Australia’s top rating for sustainable design. How important is sustainability in your work?
KS: Sustainability is often judged from the point of view of energy efficiency; it’s important but we’ve tried to look at the issue from different angles by using existing materials and features, and protecting trees. Those considerations affected the design: the entrance pavilion was positioned to accommodate a tree [a moreton bay fig planted by the artist Joseph Beuys]. With the oil tank gallery, we made use of its high ceilings and columns. We tried to respect what was already there.
What is the process of working as a duo?
RN: We always work as a team, as many as 10 people. It’s normal for us. Everyone brings their own ideas. When somebody suggests something good, someone else might take over and make it better. There are many streams of thought. Some of them die; some of them survive; some of them are integrated. It’s very interesting. Nobody knows which one will win. Everything is done through discussion. Sejima-san is like my teacher; we share a language. The pandemic gave us time for discussion. Sejima-san stayed here from morning until evening so that we had time to talk through ideas. It’s a rare situation, which we’d never had before. Before, she was always busy, always travelling. Now I feel that we have too many meetings. The downside of the pandemic was that we couldn’t visit the Sydney site. When we did Louvre-Lens in France, I was there almost every month.
You had an exhibition in Tokyo this spring that looked at the relationship of your work with the landscape – is that an essential ingredient?
RN: Architecture doesn’t move; once it’s built it becomes a part of the landscape so we have to think how we can make them work together, especially in this kind of situation where everybody can see and visit it. Architecture isn’t sculpture. With an object, you think about how to make it look good. Architecture has to become one with the landscape.
Your work has evolved from what you’ve called ‘box architecture’ to more organic shapes. How has your work changed over the years?
RN: During the 1990s our architectural thinking was two-dimensional; we would take a flat drawing and turn it into a building. The big change is our computer tools. Back then we used Cad to draw plans and it was really two-dimensional. Now we have special programmes so we can think about new designs in three dimensions from the beginning. In the old days, everyone came to meetings with a plan to express their ideas; now they bring a rough 3D model.
KS: I must admit that I still like a plan. I don’t design on a computer. Our forms have become more complicated compared to the old days and in terms of the number of engineers we work with. We have to think from many different points of view. We listen to the engineers’ ideas and opinions, and then we develop the design. It’s a collaborative effort.
What are the challenges of building overseas in locations you don’t know?
KS: Every site has its own characteristics. People who have grown up in a place know it best but sometimes an outsider can see something different. It can be challenging [to work in a new place] but it’s also interesting finding what’s possible. This is our first building in Australia. The weather and nature are beautiful but the scale is a lot bigger than Japan and the lifestyle is different. I was surprised to see so many people out running at lunchtime, close to the museum. The way people use a building is different too.
Why do you think that Japan has produced so many good contemporary architects?
RN: It’s not just Japan – there are so many great architects all over the world. Perhaps it’s that Japan isn’t Western so we take a different approach to design. When I go to Europe, I feel architecture is made with four walls. In Japan, this isn’t the only way. In traditional architecture, you don’t have those [solid] walls, which leads to a very different way of thinking. Continuity of space is very important in traditional Japanese architecture and for us too. With Sydney Modern we wanted the architecture to give people the opportunity to walk outside, even on the rooftops.
Last word about Sydney Modern?
KS: When we last visited, the experience on the first and second day was so different. Dark one day, sunny the next. The light conditions make for a very different atmosphere so it will be a changing experience for visitors. We want the museum to be part of the environment, even for people who are just passing or sitting on the terraces.
RN: With the Kanazawa Museum of Contemporary Art, one of our dreams was that people in the city would accept the museum, that it would be a place that they want to use and become part of their town. That’s an important part of architecture for me.
sanaa.co.jp
A photographic tribute to Milan’s sciure: Icons of style, power, and cultural legacy
Fashion is often seen as the preserve of the young. But in arguably the most fashionable city of them all, Milan, ladies of a certain vintage are proving that dressing well is less about standing out, or having the latest ‘in’ logo emblazoned on a T-shirt, and more about cultivating a personal style that relies on sumptuous fabrics, elegance learned through experience and just the right amount of embellishment to turn the daily consumption of espressos and proseccos into a living lesson in how to present oneself. These ‘sciure’ have even become a modern style phenomenon. So who are they? We hit Via Montenapoleone to find out.
Swaddled in furs and cashmere in the winter, linen dresses and silk jackets in the summer, and gold jewellery with permed coiffes all year, the figure of the sciura looms large in the Milanese psyche. In kid-leather gloves, this high priestess of taste can be found sipping a cappuccino at Cova in the morning and an aperitivo at the Salumaio di Montenapoleone or Sant Ambroeus in the afternoon, alternating effortlessly between espresso and prosecco throughout the day. She has a box at La Scala and shops exclusively at independent boutiques, be it for Bottega Veneta leather goods at Antonia or pasta at Rossi & Grassi. She’s elderly, wealthy and rarely spotted beyond the confines of the upmarket neighbourhood of Brera (unless it’s the weekend, when she’s at her second or third home in Brescia). She’s a natural project manager, fluttering around her palazzo, organising elegant dinner parties and bossing around her housekeeper, butler and cook. She is a uniquely Milanese phenomenon, though it is unclear whether she belongs to the city or if the city belongs to her.
She also, for better or for worse, no longer really exists – at least in such a codified form. This is partly because the type of wealth associated with a sciura‘s rarified lifestyle belongs to a bygone era in European countries, even in aristocratic Milan. Today the Villa Necchi Campiglio is no longer a family home but open to the public as a relic of its time. Despite this, the legacy of Milan’s status as a city of nobility lives on through its distinguished residents and, in particular, its leading ladies. The term itself, sciura (plural sciure), is part of the local dialect and derives from “sciur“, the Lombard word for “mister” or “sire”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it implies its fair share of negative connotations – a self-entitled, snobbish attitude and an unashamedly elitist view of society – but calling someone a sciura today is more of a hyperlocal joke than an insult. In recent years, the figure of the sciura has even become a social media phenomenon and a kitschy marketing tool for Italian brands such as La Double J and The Attico, or the popular Milanese restaurant Sant Ambroeus. Ironically, this type of publicity is one that a true sciura would shy away from, classifying the limelight as horrifically gauche.
Regardless of the state of the veritable sciura today, it is undeniable that women in Milan above a certain age are particularly stylish, more so than in other Italian or other European cities. As the residents of a fashion and design capital, home to Prada, Armani, Marni and Salone del Mobile, the Milanese embrace the notion of la bella figura to an extreme, taking immeasurable pride in putting their best foot forward and wearing their dignity on their sleeves (even when riding the tram or grocery shopping). “For some, it’s not just fashion, it’s a way of life,” says Giuliana d’Angeli, a Brera native. “It’s our culture and someone who is not from Milan can only attempt to replicate it.”
It’s 09.30 on the Via Montenapoleone and Monocle is seeking sciure. We’ve come to Cova, a glitzy café that verges on the gimmicky; in any other city, it would be the preserve of tourists. But this is Italy and the gilded institution is actually frequented by well-heeled Milanese drinking cappuccini served by waiters in tuxedos. Regulars file in, designer bags and sunglasses in hand. They loudly greet each other between even louder phone calls.
As we approach our first candidates for sciure, it transpires that it is a term that many women recoil from. That’s partly because it implies age but also a standardised look and a lack of sartorial originality. “I’m 73 and trying to dress for my age,” says d’Angeli. “But I could never be a sciura because they follow a fashion rulebook whereas I rely on my own instinct. I don’t feel old enough to be considered a sciura. I’ve lived in Milan for 40 years, and the city has disciplined me. I shower then moisturise and put lipstick on every day.” After further terminological discussion, other women will admit that it can be taken as a compliment (depending on tone and context) and it implies that you are exquisite, refined; you have a Milanese attitude and you, my dear, are looking particularly stylish today.
We continue to comb the streets of Brera and find more manicured women in cream dresses, high heels and floral blazers. Some of them nonchalantly carry bouquets of flowers, the day’s copy of La Repubblica or, in one case, a chihuahua named Amalia. Often, a well-heeled husband in Gucci loafers and with a silk pocket square waits patiently in tow as we initiate a discussion with their wives. A rigmarole almost inevitably ensues, wherein suspicion and reluctance to draw attention to oneself is eventually replaced – after considerable flattery by Monocle’s Venetian photographer Andrea Pugiotto – by five minutes of expert posing in front of the lens.
“The only style icon I follow is myself,” says Bianca Fersini Mastelloni, chairman and CEO of communications agency Polytems. “And maybe Audrey Hepburn,” she adds, in her beige Valentino dress and gold doorknocker earrings. Being in the presence of these women is a lesson in perennial chicness and letting personal taste speak louder than any logo.
Despite the fashion world’s obsession with youth and a fast-paced calendar of never-ending novelty, these women’s assurance in their own style and taste is one that younger generations should aspire to as an antidote to passing trends. If there is one thing that these women can uniformly agree on, it is the state of fashion today and how younger Italians dress too casually. “It’s changed for the worse!” “Everyone looks the same!” “Don’t get me started on ripped jeans!” (Nothing sends a shudder through these women like the thought of ripped jeans.) The truisms and advice given to us throughout the day range from paying attention to colour-coordinated details to the importance of wearing tights and jackets in formal settings, including restaurants. Ultimately, these women admit to mourning a loss of formality, where no rules also means no liberty. “What can I say?” one woman asks me with a sense of fatality. “You either have style or you don’t.”
Marva Griffin
Venezuelan-born Marva Griffin has called Milan home since the 1970s. In 1998, she founded Salone Satellite, a part of Milan Design Week that showcases emerging designers from around the world. When Monocle catches up with Griffin over a glass of wine in her Brera apartment, she can’t help but despair at fashion today. “Did you know that people pay to have rips in their jeans?” she says.
Nina Yashar
Nina Yashar is the founder of Nilufar, an influential gallery that has been bringing contemporary and historic design to Milan since 1979. When we meet her at Nilufar Depot, Yashar wears green Ferragamo shoes, a blue Prada shawl and one of her trademark headpieces.
Rossana Orlandi
Rossana Orlandi left her job in fashion for the world of design in 2002. Monocle meets her at her gallery in the Magenta neighbourhood, where she greets us in a vintage Chanel coat and shoes from Milanese boutique Wait and See. “I keep everything – I have owned the same dresses since forever,” she says. “I follow my mood and feelings when I get dressed.”
Read next: The Monocle City Guide to Milan, featuring the best hotels, restaurants and retail spots
