Issues

Andalusia’s aerospace industry is providing a clear runway to major players in aviation

More than 2,000 years ago, the Romans transformed the settlement of Hispalis, now Seville, into a centre of shipbuilding and trade. Some 90km from the Atlantic, the inland river port was ideally placed. Today, five centuries since the colonisation of the Americas brought Andalusia to its apex as a seafaring hub, the Guadalquivir river continues to carry ships laden with olive oil and wheat products.

But walk along the river’s banks, as holidaymakers are ferried gently to and fro, and you’ll see that the languidly flowing waters no longer shift fortunes as dramatically as they once did. Instead, Seville is now shaking up the world thanks to the aviators who first took to its skies more than a century ago.

With two major manufacturing sites in the city that trace their roots to those pioneering days of aviation, Airbus has proven itself to be a powerful driver of industrial innovation in Andalusia and beyond. In 2019 the company accounted for 60 per cent of Spain’s aerospace and defence exports at a value of €4.3bn. Airbus Spain reported a revenue of €6.08bn in 2023, with its Defence and Space division pulling in 66 per cent of that total. In Andalusia, aircraft and spacecraft exports grew by 61 per cent year on year in the first three quarters of 2024 to reach €1.78bn. Meanwhile, the overall Spanish aerospace industry grew by 24 per cent between 2012 and 2022 and saw significant investments in R&D, accounting for 10 per cent of the industry’s sales.

Monocle is driving past neat rows of olive trees along the perimeter of Seville’s San Pablo Airport when the vast hangars of Airbus’s installations come into view. Airbus employs about 3,400 people at its facilities in Cádiz and Seville. In addition to the final assembly lines of the C295 and A400M military transport aircraft at San Pablo, there’s an internationally accredited flight-training centre that receives 2,800 students a year, including pilots, mission crew and mechanics from 90 countries across the globe.

Senior manager Arturo Lammers leads us to the cavernous final assembly line of the four-engine A400M that’s inside a four-storey hangar. “I remember we had visitors from the Bundestag at the start of the A400M programme,” says Lammers, who worked on the twin turboprop C295 for 24 years before taking over the newer plane’s final assembly line. “One of the German representatives asked me, ‘How come the A400M is assembled in Seville?’ And I answered quite naturally, ‘Because we are the best in Europe at building planes for military transport.’” Lammers knows the aircraft intimately and has even parachuted out of one or two.

Airbus Spain was born of the merger in 1971 between two homegrown enterprises, Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) and Hispano Aviación. In 1926, CASA, based in the Madrid region, established its first outpost in Cádiz, where it built military seaplanes under a German licence. Barcelona-based Hispano-Suiza, an automaker that produced almost 33,000 aircraft engines for use during the First World War, went on to set up Hispano Aviación in Seville in 1943. CASA’s merger with Hispano Aviación in 1971 consolidated more than 50 years’ worth of the region’s experience in engineering and aviation, standing Spain in good stead when it joined the Airbus project later that year.

We follow Lammers up three flights of stairs to a vantage point from which we can marvel at the 42.4-metre-long carbon-fibre wings below us that are being lowered delicately onto the awaiting fuselage. Their descent is aided by laser guidance as part of Airbus’s “best-fit” technology, which matches the live-assembly process to theoretical computer models in real time.

“Today is one of the drumbeat moments for everyone across the entire planet that is working on the A400M,” says Lammers. The A400M aircraft is an example of international collaboration, from its design phase to the various countries that build its major parts – such as France, where the cockpit is produced; the UK, where the wings are made; and Germany, where the fuselage comes from. Next door, the five stations of the C295’s final assembly line are more of an Andalusian affair. Some 75 per cent of the Spanish-designed plane’s major sections are integrated in the region; in addition, services such as painting, delivery, maintenance and client support are supplied locally. “We Andalusians are generally nonconformists,” says Luis Marmolejo Vidal, the head of Airbus Spain’s light transport aircraft, flight line and delivery centre. “We like to feel proud of what we do. I believe that this is why there has been such a strong push to create a state-of-the-art industry within the region.”

Over the past decade, the facility has fully digitised its production processes. Workers rely on tablet computers to view schematics and troubleshoot, as well as to track progress between shifts and across stations. A recent innovation – augmented-reality goggles with integrated voice activation – ensures that workers can access computer data hands-free. When we test the specs, we are transported to the interior of a fuselage, where wiring and its related fixtures are highlighted in canary yellow to guide correct placement.

According to María Ángeles Martí, the senior vice-president of Airbus Defence and Space, the Andalusian facilities will continue to hold great importance to Airbus, particularly as the EU progresses towards its strategic defence goal of increasing technological autonomy as a response to growing instability in the region due to Russian aggression in Ukraine. “Airbus Defence is part of the road map for European defence,” says Martí, before outlining the division’s work on the EU’s Future Combat Air System and Eurodrone projects. The company’s Tablada facility in Seville will assemble the Eurodrone’s central and rear fuselages, as well as other parts.

While it is undeniable that, as Spain’s largest aerospace manufacturer, Airbus exerts a powerful influence, more than half of Andalusia’s 147 aerospace companies have fewer than 50 employees. Juan Román, the managing director of business cluster Andalucía Aerospace, says that there is an ongoing debate within the sector about whether the region’s enterprises should join together to form larger entities in an effort to better compete in the global marketplace. “On the one hand, we might consider increased size to be a key factor in improving robustness,” he says. “On the other hand, we realise that the flexibility and specialisation that a small company brings is far greater than that of a larger company.”

One of the cluster’s members, Solar mems Technologies, fits that bill. Not only is the firm highly specialised – it produces sun sensors built with micro-electromechanical systems – but it is also dedicated exclusively to the space sector, which currently accounts for a mere 3 per cent of the companies in the Andalusian aerospace industry. The Spanish Space Agency’s move from Madrid to Seville in 2023 portends a significant change in the subsector.

José Manuel Quero Reboul, a co-founder of Solar mems and tenured professor at the University of Seville’s Higher Technical School of Engineering, explains that the company’s business model is rooted in experimentation. At the university’s lab, he develops technology side by side with students that is then patented. He hands over these experimental innovations to the company so that it can translate them into marketable products, with 1 per cent of any sales going back to the university. “Though I’m sort of the father of all this, I try not to meddle,” he says with a smile. “I’m a researcher.”

The turning point for Solar mems came with a collaboration with Airbus Defence and Space as part of a project to build 648 telecommunications satellites for the Oneweb network, the only alternative constellation to SpaceX’s consumer-orientated Starlink. “Until that point, we were doing things by hand and maybe could build four devices a month – and then suddenly we needed to produce two a day,” says Quero Reboul about the order of 1,000 optical sensors that the company had to fulfil out of its tiny lab. 

An Airbus team took up residence in the Solar mems clean room to teach its technicians how to replicate quality at scale. “We are one of the few companies in the sector that have implemented assembly-line production,” he says. That allowed Airbus to make two satellites a day in its Cape Canaveral facility. Low-orbit satellites, such as the ones that Oneweb makes, can cost less than 10 per cent of what is required to build traditional ones.

While Seville’s legacy in industrial machining keeps it at the centre of the Andalusian aerospace industry, other southern cities are expanding into alternative areas. Coastal Malaga is an incubator for specialists in digital systems such as avionics software, while Huelva, near the Portuguese border, has the potential to become a hub for drone development. In October 2024 a 75-hectare installation for the testing of unmanned aerial systems opened there, becoming Europe’s first airfield dedicated to the development and trial of drones weighing up to 15 tonnes.

Aníbal Ollero is Andalusia’s foremost expert in unmanned aerial systems, as evidenced by the more than 650 publications that he has authored on the subject. He believes that diversifying the aerospace sector beyond traditional manufacturing will help to ensure its long-term success. “We mustn’t only stick to what we already know,” he says. “We should look for what else might one day play an important role in aeronautics.”

Monocle meets Ollero at Seville’s GRVC Lab, where he leads a group of professors, researchers and engineers in developing aerial robots. The indoor testing arena brings to mind an aviary: the high-ceilinged space is draped with a tent of white rope nets. This is meant to offer protection to the team’s “birds” – ornithopters, robots with flapping wings – that flutter through the air in a hi-tech homage to nature. These lightweight ornithopters are capable of quiet, hazard-free flight, particularly in comparison to rotary-wing drones, making them ideal for use in proximity to wildlife. The GRVC Lab is working on a project in which its ornithopters will be used to inspect and maintain power lines in one of the region’s major nature reserves, thus reducing the possibility of disturbing migratory birds, as well as the vulnerable Iberian lynx.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Ollero is busy with various projects that aim to keep Seville at the cutting edge of drone technology. He is the manager of the soon-to- open Center for Innovation in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Urban Air Mobility, which will consider ideas such as the aerial delivery of packages and transport via air taxis. He will also continue as the scientific director of catec, a research and development centre for aerospace technology that links the public and private sectors.

Ollero says that his work demands a certain steadfastness. “Researchers must somehow see the future,” he says. “The research that we began 20 years ago is bearing fruit now. It’s possible that we won’t get to see the results of what we are working on today.”

Innovators at Australian-Spanish start-up Dovetail Electric Aviation, however, are working to bring the future as close to today as possible. Last summer the company went to Seville to present a prototype of its hydrogen- fuel-cell powered electric motor, which can be retrofitted on existing aircraft in the under-20-passenger category. While hydrogen-fuel-cell technology is not yet advanced enough for use in long-haul flights, Dovetail has set its sights on shorter flights as an achievable goal within the next two years. A maiden flight of its electric-powered engines is planned to take place in 2025.

“In addition to being zero-emission, electrification’s promise lies in its ability to significantly reduce operating costs,” says David Doral, the company’s co-founder and ceo. Electric-battery powered engines can achieve flight times of 15 to 20 minutes, which are suitable for skydiving centres and other uses in tourism, such as island-hopping or scenic flights. With the addition of hydrogen fuel cells, an engine’s range extends to one hour, opening up the possibility of a renaissance in regional air travel between cities that are currently unviable to connect by air.

Though Doral has had an international career in the aerospace sector, working for companies including Embraer in Brazil and Boeing in the US, the time that he spent in Seville left an impression. “I’ve always seen it as a fascinating place for growing projects,” he says, before outlining Dovetail’s plans to expand in Spain with an R&D base and manufacturing facility. Though it’s not clear whether Andalusia will be Dovetail’s future home, Doral mentions that the impending arrival in Seville of Swiss aircraft manufacturer Pilatus bodes well, as the company’s PC-12 is “perfectly compatible” with Dovetail’s retrofits.

Andalusia’s aerospace industry presents fascinating contrasts, with tradition and innovation combining to sparkling effect. For major players with staying power and forward-thinking spirits alike, it seems that there are nothing but clear skies ahead.

Why the appeal of printed photographs is enduring through a digital age

For the global photography market, 2023 was a record year in terms of sales volume. But there was a catch: the total value of those sales was $62.4m (€57.4m), marking a fall from 2022. Though the market is active, the sector’s buyers don’t necessarily have the deepest pockets. For many, photography offers an entry point to art collecting.

In a world where we can take and view images with a tap of a finger on a smartphone, what does it say about the medium that we continue to collect and surround ourselves with photographs? What makes the snapshots that we choose for our walls special and how are they valued? And how does living with photographs change the way we experience a room?

Over the following pages we explore the art of building a collection. We visit a Park Avenue auction, spotlight galleries across the globe and explore the history of the art form. We also enter the homes of some keen-eyed enthusiasts to take a peek at their extraordinary collections. They might inspire you to snap up a print or two of your own.

At Monocle, we take the pursuit of a fantastic shot seriously. And sometimes, a good photo shouldn’t be confined to the page. — L

AUCTIONS to watch
Negative equity
New York

Within seconds, Peter Hujar’s lifetime print, titled “David Wojnarowicz (Village Voice ‘Heartsick: Fear and Loving in the Gay Community’)”, climbs in price from $26,000 (€24,000) to $70,000 (€64,700), before continuing upwards. The photograph takes just two minutes to be sold at a final price of $139,700 (€129,300). “It’s the only lifetime print of that image that we’ve seen,” says Sarah Krueger, Phillips’ head of photographs in New York, who is the auctioneer when monocle attends the Park Avenue event. (A “lifetime print” is one that’s produced while the photographer is still alive.)

Until the Hujar print, the mood in the auction room has been relatively calm, with a small group of seated bidders and others dropping by for certain lots. Every now and then, someone will gently raise their paddle. One man in the second row bids by lifting his finger with the slightest of movements. Blink and you’d miss it. “He’s a collector who I’ve been dealing with for decades,” says Christopher Mahoney, senior international specialist, photographs, at Phillips. “I remember seeing him in the 1990s. He’s a real auction pro.”

That was back when the sale rooms were full and frantic, sometimes brimming with more than 100 people. Nowadays, though the auction is still held in a physical space, most of the action takes place by phone or through the online platform, which people log into from around the world. “The technology has become so good and accessibility has expanded so much,” says Mahoney.

Whether attending in person or engaging down the line, thousands of bidders from more than 40 countries have turned out for the slew of famous photos under the hammer, including Wolfgang Tillmans’ “Paper Drop Novo”, Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled Film Still #18” and Alfred Stieglitz’s “From the Back Window – 291 – Snow Covered Tree, Back-Yard”, which sells for $304,800 (€282,330).

The price that a photograph achieves at auction is the result of several factors: the condition and size of the print, how many were made, how often one becomes available and how long after the negative date the work was printed. “While there are innumerable variables for our valuations, rarity and condition can be the biggest drivers,” says Krueger. Though the most common prints that she sees at auction are gelatin silver, chromogenic and pigment, many contemporary artists use traditional processes such as the 19th-century daguerreotypes.

How quickly something sells depends, of course, on how decisive the bidders are. “It’s from 40 seconds to a minute when people have to make decisions,” says Krueger.

Long-time collector Louis Berrick, who loves the work of William Klein, recommends going in with a plan and a sum in mind. He is less concerned with rarity and appreciates how accessible the art form can be. “If there are 40 photographs that were made and signed by the artist, that’s great,” he says. “It’s a very democratic art form.”

Like most collectors, he’ll peruse the catalogue beforehand and take note of a few pieces. But he mostly chooses what to bid on through impulse. “I decide in the moment,” says Berrick. He’s glad that the online platform allows more bidders to take part but says there’s nothing like being in the room. Before the auction, Berrick will view the collection in person, sometimes asking if he can see the photographs outside the frame. “You’ll go there and realise a photograph isn’t so big. Or you’ll see something different in the picture. It changes your experience.” Mahoney also encourages collectors to engage with the collections if they can.

In the auction room itself, there’s one piece of advice that everyone will tell you: unless you’re bidding, keep your hands firmly in your lap. Lifting a finger can come at a high price.

Gelatin silver print.

10⅛ inches 3 10 inches (25.7cm 3 25.4cm).

Printed by the artist, with the estate’s copyright-credit reproduction limitation stamps. Signed, titled and dated by Stephen Koch, executor of the Hujar estate, in pencil.

estimate: Up to $50,000 (€46,250).

sold for: $139,700 (€129,300)

Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #18, 1978.

Gelatin silver print.

7⅝ inches 3 9½ inches (19.4cm 3 24.1cm).

Signed, dated and numbered 5/10 in pencil on the verso.

estimate: $80,000 (€74,100) to $120,000 (€111,150).

sold for: $101,600 (€94,110)

Francesca Woodman
Self Portrait (with Bird), 1976-78.

Unique oversized gelatin silver print with applied paint and pigment.

49¾ inches 3 35½ inches (126.4cm 3 90.2cm).

with frame: 58⅜ inches 3 43⅛ inches (148.3cm 3 109.5cm).

estimate: $150,000 (€139,000) to $250,000 (€231,570).

sold for: $190,500 (€176,450)

Tina Modotti
Telegraph Wires, circa 1925.

Platinum print.

9⅜ inches 3 7⅛ inches (23.8cm 3 18.1cm).

Former owner Vittorio Vidali’s “Commissar of the Fifth Regiment” stamp, a typed caption label and reduction notations in an unidentified hand in pencil on the verso.

estimate: $150,000 (€139,000) to $250,000 (€231,570).

sold for: $177,800 (€164,840)

Alfred Stieglitz
From the Back Window – 291 – Snow Covered Tree, Back-Yard, 1915.

Platinum print.

95/8 inches 3 75/8 inches (24.4cm 3 19.4cm).

estimate: $250,000 (€231,570) to $350,000 (€324,190).

sold for: $304,800 (€282,330)

At the Honolulu Defense Forum, the sector prepares for a China crisis

Valentine’s Day in Hawaii sounds romantic but for bigwigs in the US defence sector, 14 February will be devoted to one thing: facing up to Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. The second iteration of the Honolulu Defense Forum (HDF), which runs from 13 to 14 February and is organised in partnership with the US Indo-Pacific Command and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, will focus on “operationalising urgency” and “promoting regional security” from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn.

“With intensifying security challenges, such as those posed by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and heightened tensions in the South China Sea, both European and Indo-Pacific theatres face pressing security needs,” says Kimberly Lehn, senior director of the HDF. “What we offer is an event focused on strategic policy questions and solutions. It’s more intimate than bigger conferences, such as the Shangri-La Dialogue. Some 250 members of government will be in attendance, as well as military policymakers, planners, analysts, think-tanks and venture capital.” Keynote speakers include Washington operators such as Robert J Wittman, the US representative for Virginia, and Jedidiah P Royal, an Indo-Pacific security expert at the Department of Defense.

On the commercial side of things, HDF’s sponsors have included traditional defence names including Lockheed Martin, as well as relatively new tech operators, such as Palantir Technologies and Amazon Web Services. The latter two’s presence indicates the important role that technology companies play in the defence space, as well as the rewards on offer from the most recent military budget presented to Congress, which included a request for $895bn (€820bn) in funding for 2025.

HDF will take place at Waikiki Beach, which has become a byword for relaxation. Yet the watchword will be preparedness, as there are many in the US and among its allies who believe that the Pentagon has been too slow to counter China’s military posturing across the Indo-Pacific (Beijing now possesses the world’s largest maritime fighting force, operating 234 warships to the US’s 219). All eyes will be on Waikiki this Valentine’s Day for a signal of Washington’s renewed intent.

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Nic Monisse on why Dubai designers are the future of the Middle East’s creative scene

At the turn of the century, when the likes of Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas began designing buildings in Dubai, the Emirate faced criticism for importing talent rather than nurturing it. But things have changed. The city’s design scene is growing in confidence and nowhere is that clearer than at Dubai Design Week. The most recent edition of the annual event, which took place in November 2024, made local talent the headline act (even key international draws such as India Mahdavi have Middle Eastern roots).

“There has been a shift recently,” says Dubai native Omar Al Gurg, guest curator of the 2024 event’s uae Designer Exhibition and founder of furniture and lifestyle brand Modu Method. “A lot of people in the Emirates are now looking for regional designers to be able to actually design furniture and places for people to live the way we’re supposed to be living in this region. We’re not bringing in as much design from Europe, which is great. It’s becoming much more contextual.”

But what’s perhaps most impressive about the event is the way these local talents have been made the stars of the show. Rather than the majority of works on display being commercially ready for production or produced by designers without any financial support (as is often the case at design events across the globe), Dubai Design Week commissions new and experimental structures and installations. In November, there was a cardboard pavilion made to experiment with new building forms by Dubai-based studio Deond, unconventional furniture by Iraq-based architect Ola Saad Znad, crafted from reeds using ancient techniques and much more. In short, it’s a showcase focused on innovation and potential rather than sales.

“It’s about the designers who are willing to enter this space of experimentation making themselves vulnerable and leaving room for failure,” says Natasha Carella, director of Dubai Design Week. “It’s only by being inventive that we can move forward.” This event is one of the most impressive in the industry – and it’s cultivating an equally strong community.

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Moving to Mumbai? Colaba is the place where art and architecture unite 

At the southernmost tip of Mumbai, people congregate along the shoreline, seeking respite from the tropical morning heat. This is Colaba, a former island that’s now one of four peninsulas dangling from India’s most populous megacity into the Arabian Sea. Once a haven for jackals and pirates, Colaba became a mercantile enclave that blossomed into a jewel of the British Raj in the late 19th century after colonial authorities reclaimed land in the strait separating it from the rest of what was then, and still is (for many locals at least), known as Bombay. Today, though it is integrated within the city, at least physically, its architectural splendour, old-world charm and artistic sensibility mean that it sits apart from the bustle and chaos of the wider metropolis. The light here is meek, milky – it whispers through the haze. Monsoon season has passed and Diwali is just round the corner.

Colaba Causeway, the area’s main drag, has an eclectic inventory of shops, from hole-in-the-wall purveyors of bric-a-brac, where tables are piled high with silver goblets, vintage glasses and Kolhapuri sandals, to nearby high-end boutiques such as Amit Aggarwal’s flagship and international multi-brand boutique Le Mill. There are minimalist cafés and sleek wine bars reminiscent of Copenhagen or Melbourne, as well as old video shops and impossibly pokey office buildings where ceiling fans beat lazily day and night.

Running off the causeway are knots of lanes, where many homes have grand Victorian façades. Pratik Perane, a city architect, points to the middle floors of the buildings as we pass by. Many used to house just one colonial administrator but following the fall of the British Empire they were bequeathed to favoured Indian families. Palm trees droop over the red Mangalore-tiled roofs typical of the area. “All the history of the place is still here,” says Perane. On the other side of the jagged spit from where we stand, meandering Marine Drive is studded with colourful art deco buildings; Mumbai has the second-largest concentration of the architectural style of any city except Miami – and many of them are found here in Colaba. Some incorporate winking allusions to the area’s seafaring history, with deck-style balconies or nautical colourways.

In photographs, Colaba looks like a time capsule. On paper, it’s more often described as the heart of Mumbai’s burgeoning art scene. In the 1990s and early 2000s, gallerists began occupying its high-ceilinged buildings and lofty spaces. There are about 30 galleries here now – contemporary, local, traditional and international – most tucked up winding staircases on the second and third floors of old buildings that have camera shops, tailors or accountants below. One of Colaba’s most famous is Jhaveri Contemporary, housed in the historic Devidas Mansion.

The view from the gallery’s wide windows is spectacular, framing the Gateway of India, Colaba’s most famous landmark, at a perfect golden ratio. In its 14 years, Jhaveri Contemporary has focused on South Asian artists from the diaspora, representing well-known figures including Simryn Gill and Lubna Chowdhary. It was a natural alignment to set up a base in Colaba. “The entire gallery world is here,” says Priya Jhaveri, one half of the sister duo that run the gallery. Her sibling, Amrita, who is now based in London, came to Mumbai in the early 1990s to set up the first Christie’s office in India.

It wasn’t a glamorous time for Colaba, which had become a haven for Westerners looking to buy heroin or marijuana. The enclave’s crumbling doorways were filled with slumped, stoned tourists. But by the time the sisters were ready to open their own gallery, a smattering of others had already set up. “It was the only place, really, if you wanted to be in art,” says Amrita. More gallerists are flocking here: contemporary gallery Nature Morte opened up less than a year ago and Kolkata-based Experimenter Gallery, which focuses on multidisciplinary works, just before that. There’s a real community and intermingling between the artists and the galleries, says Amrita. “We’re all each other’s clients and friends and buyers.”

If you head to the edge of Colaba in the morning, following the smell of salt and fish, you get some sense (or, perhaps, scents) of its past life. The area’s name derives from the Koli fishing communities who first inhabited its shorefront. At dawn, clusters of women wait by the water to meet the fishing boats that bob over the horizon. They are en route to Sassoon Docks, which are named after the Baghdadi Jewish family that built a business empire here in the 19th century. Today these docks house one of the country’s largest fish markets, which moves between more than 20 tonnes of fish per day. Mumbai accounts for about 30 per cent of India’s total seafood exports and Sassoon Docks makes up a key portion of that tally. Here, the women, saris knotted at their hips, are the drivers of the action, shouting and bargaining and hawking their husbands’ hauls of pomfret, prawns and bombil.

The Sassoons are responsible for a great number of the grand old buildings in Colaba but the area is more closely associated with another homegrown dynasty: the Tatas. Almost everyone monocle speaks to mentions the Parsi clan whose Tata Group conglomeration is India’s most valuable company (worth about €375bn). Ratan Tata, the group’s famous ex-chairman, died in October. It was his ancestor, Jamshedji Tata, who first saw the appeal of Colaba’s quietude, building a series of mansions here in the late 19th century. Today their crumbling façades and Victorian names stand as testament to the area’s colonial past: the Radio Club, Yacht Club and Sandhurst House, to name a few. A little further along, at the waterfront’s edge, sits the strip’s grande dame, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a five-star, 285-key behemoth with a foyer that has been graced by names such as John Lennon and Hillary Clinton, and on whose steps the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, proclaimed the country’s independence at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947. That historic balcony overlooks the Gateway of India, built to commemorate the visit of King George V in 1911 and through which the last British troops left the country in 1948.

Though the Tatas, and the British, have since moved on, Colaba is still home to many Parsis, a Zoroastrian community descended from Persian refugees who came to India in the seventh century. The yellow archway of Cusrow Baug, a 1,540-apartment residential compound restricted to Parsis, is another landmark. As we stand in its centre, looking up at the brutalist-style blocks, we meet two of the compound’s oldest residents, Ruby Lilowalia and her husband, Feroz, who are out on their evening stroll. Ruby’s grandmother moved to Cusrow Baug in 1935; her grandson will be the fifth generation of their family to live here. What began as free housing given to people who couldn’t afford their own has now become a redoubt for all strata of the Parsi community. Its residents began to prosper and grow wealthy but, she says, they still wanted to live here. “It’s wonderful for children – and old people,” she says, laughing. “We have everything here: a gym, a physiotherapy centre, even a school. There are many more Mercedes than when we were growing up but we’re together. It’s safe. That’s why people want to stay.”

When India was finding its feet as an independent nation, the new owners of Colaba’s mansions struggled to pay for their upkeep and many buildings fell into disrepair. Now, strict regulations by local authorities and Unesco mean that they can’t be knocked down, nor repurposed. So they remain frozen in aspic as the hyperactive city around them changes rapidly. “People come here for the memory of Bombay, what it was,” says Perane, the architect.

Inside Bakhtavar, a whitewashed art deco palazzo on the shorefront, Monocle takes the stairs up to the home of Ravi Jain, a former drinks company executive, who has lived in Colaba for the past 30 years. The calm of his wood-panelled apartment is a world away from the hubbub of the street below. “Once you live here, it’s hard to get out,” says Jain. “It’s greener, older, more charming.” He can only recall one of the houses in his block being sold since he moved in; everything else has moved within families. Jain’s sons will live in this building when he’s gone.

“This little pocket of south Bombay has its own charm,” says Meeta Singh, an estate agent who has worked in the area for more than 10 years. “But it’s not expensive, not like people might think. There are parts of Mumbai with New York prices, Hong Kong prices. But Colaba is reasonable.” A one-bedroom apartment, says Singh, would cost just less than €300,000. Renting is a lot cheaper, especially if the house falls under the old pagdi system, in which tenants pay a token amount in order to be deemed co-owners and share responsibility for the property’s upkeep. This area is not the first choice for India’s burgeoning high earners in tech and finance – Singh puts this down to the fact that these people generally prefer new buildings with pools, guards and gyms rather than the quaint but high- maintenance residences found in Colaba. There are almost no high-rises here; the mod cons are serviceable rather than state of the art. “Colaba is for people who want something special, with a sense of its own character,” she says.

That character is exactly what drew designer Divya Thakur to the area 20 years ago. Her apartment, which she redesigned herself, houses a museum of curios collected from around India as well as from antiques markets in Europe. A Florentine chandelier hangs in the bathroom while a bronze bull from nearby Chor Bazaar anchors the living room. Her walls are painted in moody washes of blue, lime and dusty pink.

For Thakur, Colaba is its own ecosystem. She puts much of the renewed interest in the area down to city planning: the Eastern Freeway, which connects northern Colaba to downtown Mumbai, has cut the journey time between the two from about two hours to 30 minutes. “Now if you want to pop in to see an art exhibition, it’s not a big deal,” she says. “Galleries bring the people, who bring the vibe, which brings even more culture. It’s like a cycle.” Here, a Bombayite can catch a couple of art exhibitions, stop for a canteen lunch, pick up a dress from local designer Lovebirds Studio and refuel on Subko coffee without ever getting behind the wheel of a car (humidity levels permitting). “It’s walkable, it’s easy – and that makes all the difference,” she says. But there have been periods, says Thakur, when Colaba lost its lustre. After bouncing back from being a druggy haven, there was another lull in the early 2010s as some new restaurants and boutiques migrated to younger, buzzy neighbourhoods such as Bandra and Lower Parel to the north. But the draw of Colaba, according to Thakur, is unique, maybe made even more so because of its waxing and waning. “Colaba’s character, its feeling of old Bombay and its colour and vibrancy, has not gone away,” she says. “If anything, people are appreciating it more than ever.”

Irish designer Cormac Lynch directs us to his apartment with very specific instructions. “If you see a plastic chair, a half-built lift and plaster crumbling off the walls, you are in the right building,” he texts Monocle. Lynch has called Mumbai home for the past nine years. While his projects are usually modern, he wanted to lean into tradition for his own home. The main living room is painted a deep honeyed gold with buffeting curtains draped over the floor-to-ceiling windows. Whenever he mentions an artist friend or a fashion-designer acquaintance, he gestures to one of the buildings nearby, indicating the direction in which they live. “It’s an area that attracts the creative type,” he says. “It’s all this beauty around us.”

As the light begins to fade, we find ourselves drawn inexorably to the shoreline. People promenade, buffeted by a cooling sea breeze, while Colaba’s art deco jewels twinkle in the gloaming. Looking out across the water at the gleaming skyscrapers of modern Mumbai, it is easy to feel as though Colaba is still an island, protected from modernity by a strip of water. Sometimes it takes standing at a distance to see more clearly. Sellers hawk peanuts in paper cones; trousers are rolled up to let ankles cool in the water. A man flies a kite in the wind then hands the reins to his son. Mumbai or Bombay? Foreigners and maps will tell you the former but the locals feel differently. They say that Bombay is the feeling; Mumbai is the geography. If that’s true, then Colaba is a perfect mixture of both.

Colaba calling: Neighbourhood know-how

The cost of a one-bedroom flat and the estate agent to call:
Approx 18,000,000 rupees – 25,000,000 rupees (€200,000-€280,000). Call Meeta Singh.

The best street to live on:
Merewether Road. You’re a stone’s throw from Colaba’s finest art galleries and restaurants but one step removed from the chaos. Canopies of ancient trees lend afternoon shade to the apartments lining this lovely strip.

The school in which to enrol the children:
In nearby Fort, the Cathedral and John Connon School is a co-ed institution that dates to the 1800s and entices parents with its promise of producing well-rounded and academically formidable citizens.

The best grocer, baker and ‘vada pav’ maker:
Parsi stalwart Yazdani bakery is the place for hot, soft breads and Iranian chai; the bun maska combines both with added butter. But head to Swati Snacks for Bombay’s famous afternoon pick-me-up: vada pav is a dense potato patty stuffed between fluffy bread and swipes of spiced and sweet chutney. Enjoy it with sweet coffee.

The five galleries or collectors to meet:

1. Sakshi Gallery for a true Colaba institution.
2. Experimenter for exposed beams and something more contemporary.
3. Project 88 for a taste of Brooklyn in Bombay.
4. Jhaveri Contemporary for the brightest of the Indian diaspora.
5. DAG Mumbai for experiential art within the hallowed halls of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.

The running route that shows the enclave at its best:
The 3km stretch of Marine Drive for its waterfront views and the unusual quiet you can experience – as long as you’re out early.

Closest airport and how to get there:
Fly into Mumbai’s transit hub, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, and take a ride-share southwards. After 25 minutes, Colaba is in sight.

The biggest improvement in recent years:
The Eastern Freeway has shortened commute times across the city by half in some instances.

The area is still missing:
Green spaces dedicated to leisure and play (particularly for children).

One thing you’ll only find here:
A generations-old Parsi silver jeweller operating out of the curved window of an art deco jewel.

Adrenaline meets architectural wonder at Snowbird’s maverick ski resort

A dusting of powder blows over Utah State Route 210 as Monocle drives up the canyon from Salt Lake City. Mountains loom above, covered in white snow and dark trees. Bound for Snowbird ski resort, a 1971 gem of modernist architecture hidden high in the Rocky mountains’ Wasatch Range, this stretch of highway is among the most avalanche-prone in the US. Road closures are frequent and the 30-minute drive from the Utah state capital is best navigated with sturdy vehicles (Monocle opts for an enormous, chauffeured black GMC Yukon).

“Snowbird is the first studiously modern American ski resort,” says Jack Smith. The Fellow of the American Society of Architects, now 92, was instrumental in the design of this pioneering destination, as an original member of the Snowbird Design Group. More than 50 years after opening, its bold concrete architecture – which includes several large, multi-purpose lodges, a hotel and conference centre, resort operations facilities and even a fire station – still feels contemporary. “Concrete is a miracle,” explains Smith. “You mix gravel, sand and water and get the hardness of stone. You can use it to make something special that has not been seen before.” Indeed, when it was completed, nothing like Snowbird had been seen before in the US, with its angular, modernist buildings emerging from the contours of the rocky, mountainous landscape.

“It erupts from nature, rather than imposing on it,” adds Smith, explaining that Snowbird’s building forms and materials suit the character of the mountains. But perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Little Cottonwood Canyon, where Snowbird is located, was formed by the immense force of millennia-old glaciers, carving out exceptionally steep slopes that have made its ski runs some of the world’s most thrilling – and conditions that make this landscape very difficult to build on.

But it’s this tough terrain that first drew Snowbird’s founder, Ted Johnson, to the area in the mid-1960s, when he took a job at the neighbouring Alta Ski Resort. Known as the “Silver Fox” for his good looks and mane of light-grey hair, Johnson was a thrill-seeker on skis and appeared in now-classic Warren Miller-directed ski movies and on the cover of Sports Illustrated (twice). But he also carried a similarly adventurous streak in his business dealings, as evidenced by his moves at Snowbird.

Fuelled by a desire to create a truly unique ski experience in Utah, on terrain so steep that it initially seemed impossible to develop, Johnson and his wife, Wilma, began to research the prospect of building a resort in the canyon. After identifying that the landscape where Snowbird is located amid US Forest Service land, crossed by a host of different historical mining claims (land titles that allow private development), the duo set about trying to collect all of the claims.

“Wilma went to the records office in Salt Lake County to research the claims,” says Neil Cohen, Snowbird’s official historian and retired 52-year-old veteran manager of the resort’s Golden Cliff Restaurant. The Johnsons slowly bought the claims and, in 1964, approached Smith, a friend and fellow avid skier, to start design work. Initial consultations took place in secret (to avoid others laying claim to the, well, claims) and the Snowbird Design Group was formed – a motley crew of architects and others passionate about skiing and striking gold with a new kind of resort.

In addition to tapping Smith, Johnson also hired Ted Nagata early in the process to give Snowbird its graphic identity. The Japanese-American graphic designer’s “wing” logo, with Snowbird printed in Helvetica above it, is now a classic example of 1960s American graphic design. This branding was instrumental in developing “the black box”, a paper pitch deck for investors that Johnson used to raise the first $400,000 needed to start the development.

By 1967 the Snowbird Design Group had created the first master plan. And from the outset, it was clear that the resort was designed to be different. “Ted Johnson said, ‘I’m not going to have that European chalet motif,’” says Cohen. The resulting designs were bold and angular, influenced by modernist masters such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier and the pragmatic utility of the illustrious US Army 10th Mountain Division, who had brought recreational skiing back to the US after the Second World War.

Like Marcel Breuer’s 1969 modernist masterwork Flaine Ski Resort in the French Alps – an inspiration to everyone involved – Snowbird developed its own design language. Dictated by a topography that left little room for buildings, the design group prioritised structures that fit into the terrain rather than fighting it. With no space to sprawl in the steep canyon, initial construction in the early 1970s saw buildings rise taller than other typical ski resort architecture. But careful siting below the interstate highway and along the contour lines ensured hat the massive structures seem smaller than they are.

Key to this approach was the master modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley, a mentor to Smith, who provided key input in suggesting the “skiers’ bridge” over Little Cottonwood Creek, which divides the canyon. The bridge seamlessly connects the ski slopes directly with the centrepiece Snowbird Center, one of the first spate of buildings completed for the opening day on 23 December 1971. The megastructure contains ski facilities and dining, alongside the base station of the Snowbird Tram.

Also among the facilities open at Snowbird’s inception was the now-beloved aerial tram. One of the first of its kind in the US, its blue-and-red cars travel 884 vertical metres to the top of the resort – an area known as Hidden Peak – in 13 minutes. Built by workers from Swiss lift company Garaventa (who brought their own liquor to Salt Lake’s dry Mormon country), it was – and still is – the most efficient option for transporting skiers to the peak.

This foundational work proved to be (unsurprisingly) expensive, and Johnson needed more cash to make his vision a reality. The most significant investors was Texan rancher, oilman and adventurer Dick Bass. Initially coming on board in 1969, Bass spending more than $13m on the resort by opening day. Development continued at pace, with the constellation of architects responsible for Snowbird evolving to include the likes of James Christopher and Ray Kingston. Bass became patron saint of Snowbird, buying Jonhnson out in 1974.

The finest expression of Snowbird’s architecture is The Iron Blosam, a lodge that was finished in 1975. Its intricate concrete, steel and wood façade used one of the first staggered transverse construction systems in the US: each concrete floor slab both hangs and supports the next element. It’s a method of building that allowed the creation of double-height living rooms in all units as well as a multi-levelled common space, built around a large central hearth (entering the space today, one is reminded of a gentler age in hospitality, with wooden details including mail cubbies tucked behind a bell desk).

Slightly uphill from the Blosam and other central buildings is the 12-storey Cliff Lodge, which was finished in 1974, itself complemented by a sizeable extension in 1986. It is Snowbird’s largest and most iconic building, crowned with a bright-blue heated outdoor pool and hot tub. The original Cliff Lodge condo units are angled at 45 degrees, providing views, balconies and wonderful articulation in the façade. This contrasts with the smoked-black 1980s hotel addition, which features an expansive 11-storey open atrium and a swooping mezzanine detailed in cedar. The Atrium Café sits at the bottom, opening early to serve coffee and flaky ham-and-cheese croissants for guests aiming to take the first tram up.

Snowbird is still operated independently, a growing rarity in the US. Bass continued as sole owner until 2014, when he sold to Ian Cumming of Powdr Corp, a small seven-resort group based in neighbouring Park City, Utah. A decade later, it’s clear that they understand the resort’s need to be different, if not the need for excellence in architecture. Recent structures, such as the Summit Restaurant and proposals for the replacement of the on-slope Mid-Gad restaurant (a masterpiece of wooden trussing) suggest a more modest contemporary design aspiration.

Luckily, the snow still falls. “We receive an average of 500 inches of snow every winter and in 2023 we hit almost 900 inches – the canyon record,” Dave Fields, Snowbird’s president and general manager, tells Monocle with glee. The ski season roughly runs from November to May, with Utah powder – trademarked as “The Greatest Snow on Earth” – revered for being extremely dry, meaning that skiers can float in it chest-deep. (Snowbird is also a tree-skiing paradise, impressing Monocle’s Swiss ski instructor and fixer, Roger Mogg. “You move through the forest in wild steep turns,” says Mogg. “That’s hard to find in Switzerland.”) Snowbird’s current terrain map also shows off its enduring appeal as a complex ski zone, with many black lines. “It challenges people and they’re forced to progress,” says Fields. The blacks are often double black and the blues are very dark blue. The names of the runs reference Snowbird culture, from “Bassackwards” (Dick Bass) and “Silver Fox” (Ted Johnson) to “Junior’s Powder Paradise”, named for the now 99-year-old former Snowbird ski school director Junior Bounous, who helped design trails – and who still gets out on the mountain.

While the excessive powder, which can be up to 20 metres deep and on steep slopes, is appealing to skiers, it presents an extreme avalanche risk. All the buildings are, as a result, made from 5,000 PSI reinforced concrete. (“Nuclear plants are 6,000 PSI,” says Smith.) In fact, securing the resort requires triggering controlled snowslides. “We use artillery, we use remote avalanche control devices, we use helicopters,” says Fields.

Such activities can lead to a unique phenomenon called “interlodge”, where everyone at Snowbird becomes building-bound. “It’s declared when avalanches could surround the resort,” says Sarah Sherman, Snowbird’s communications manager. “It’s actually illegal to leave the buildings during interlodge.” Bright red warning signs are posted on locked doors during such events, which can last multiple days.

Snowbird is, in short, not a place for the ski-to-lunch-then-après crowd – and, given its steep landscape, remote location and free-spirited foundation, this is perhaps to be expected. Snowbird is about the pure love of big mountain skiing and landscapes, from the architecture they inspire to the personalities they attract. “I’ve never met someone who’s neutral about Snowbird,” says Sherman. “You love it or you hate it.”

On Monocle’s last day on the slopes a figure in orange catapults off a boulder, flipping on a 10-metre drop. The entire slow-moving chairlift audience goes wild. There’s a collective, vocal, American welcome at Snowbird. “That’s only the second time that line has ever been skied,” the woman next to Monocle yells out. From its creators to its fans, Snowbird is made for the mavericks.
snowbird.com

Vienna’s timeless sausage stands

Austrian photographer and Monocle regular Stefan Oláh is known for his sharp eye for façades and interiors but also the lesser-known idea of “transit architecture”. He shoots non-places and hidden spots, the spaces in between that come to define cities by accident rather than by design.

The first edition of his photo book on Vienna’s Würstelstände (sausage stands) was titled The Hot 95 and was released in 2013 by historic publisher Verlag Anton Pustet. But that was just the beginning of Oláh’s obsession. This autumn a batch of new images was displayed at a branch of Radatz, one of Vienna’s best-known butchers, which supported the book’s publication then and now (and, of course, supplies many of the sausage stands depicted). In a testament to the Würstelstände’s place in the collective heart of Viennese residents, the city’s mayor Michael Ludwig – one of several opening night dignitaries – arrived early to quiz Oláh about his work. “I told him that there’s always a bin beside the stands,” Oláh tells Monocle. “But no two stands have the same type of bin or system of garbage disposal. He found it quite amusing.” The Würstelstände is also a reflection of the way in which unplanned elements and ideas often define cities better than slick marketing campaigns or the best-laid branding plans.

As with Oláh’s previous project on petrol stations, his examination of sausage stands has allowed him to look closer at his city and glean deeper insights about it. Studying sausage stands also reveals deeper truths about Vienna’s urban life and changing appetites. “A lot of the stands now offer organic food and beer, and the kiosk designs have changed too,” he says, showing Monocle one of the newer images, of a stand called Zum Goldenen Würstel (“At the Golden Sausage”) in the city’s postcard-pretty Innere Stadt. With a sleek metal-and-glass roof over the counter and large windows, it’s strikingly different from the old boxier kiosks. The oldest stand still in operation is said to be Würstelstand LEO in the Ninth District (now turquoise and perhaps not precisely as it was in 1928). The idea of the sausage stand is said to date back much further, to the Austro-Hungarian empire, with some sources even suggesting that the concept was cooked up as a way for wounded veterans to earn a crust. “There’s a lot of history here,” says Oláh. “A new generation of entrepreneurs has entered the business since I published the first edition.” Some stands have their own tribes too, such as opera-goers’ favourite Bitzinger, exhibiting angular modernism in the shadow of the Albertina museum, or the bright yellow Bad Dog near the Belvedere Palace, which is particularly popular with visitors from Asia.

The ongoing project, like almost all of Oláh’s work, can be slow-going. It requires a certain degree of patience given that no one quite knows how many Würstelstände actually exist in Vienna – Oláh and his assistants simply searched for kiosk-shaped structures on a map, then visited each to see whether it was a stand. Then there’s the weather. For one stand, at the atmospheric address of Am Nordpol (“At the North Pole”) in Vienna’s Second District, Oláh waited two and a half years to get the right shot. “I wanted to capture it in snow and it took that long to get the perfect conditions.”

Typically, Oláh’s frames include few if any people but, when they are there, they could really be anyone – a nod to another essential aspect of the Würstelstände: its egalitarian nature. Their clientele cut across social and cultural boundaries. It’s a cliché but an accurate one: at any given time, blue-collar workers, tourists, celebrities and politicians can be seen standing shoulder to shoulder. Even the word “wurst”, or sausage, is embedded in everyday speech: “Es ist mir Wurscht” – a quintessential Austrian phrase – translates roughly to “I don’t care” and is used by everyone. The Viennese can seem gruff at times but the humble sausage stand is one way to understand the city’s history, economy and appetites more intimately – and get some change from a €10 note.

Why the sausage stand?
Stefan Oláh’s fascination with the quirkier parts of the built environment began about 15 years ago when he started work on Sechsundzwanzig Wiener Tankstellen, a book documenting another Viennese curiosity: petrol stations tucked into residential buildings. His aim was to show how these stations – more than 26 of them are featured in the book, though many have since vanished – were an idiosyncrasy of his home city and an odd intersection of the old Imperial world and a newer, more mobile one. He was drawn by the unusual layouts and vintage signs, many dating back to the postwar decades. The book, published in 2010, sparked a flurry of interviews. In one of these, Oláh mentioned he might next turn his attention to another Viennese fixture: the Würstelstand. “It was just a passing remark,” he says. “But the publishers kept on asking: so when are you going to do it?”

Five of Stefan Ólah’s favourite Vienna sausage stands

1.
Hermann’s
5-7 Stiftgasse, 1070, in the Wipark Garage

2.
Wiener Würstelstand
1 Pfeilgasse, 1080

3.
Alles Wurscht
1 Börseplatz, 1010

4.
Würstelstand Kaiserzeit
Augartenbrücke/Obere Donaustrasse, 1020

5.
Zum Scharfen Rene
15 Schwarzenbergplatz, 1010

Wurst practice: sausage-stand etiquette
Ordering is an art, as is knowing your Senf (mustard) from your Semmel (dense white bun). Most sausages will be a frankfurter or bratwurst but other options include the cheesy Käsekrainer, long thin Sacherwürstel and smoked Waldviertler. Berliners will recognise the currywurst (as it sounds, drenched in spiced gravy) but the spicy Hungarian-inspired Debreziner might be news to you. While not compulsory, beer is a fundamental part of the Würstelstand experience – especially since, with their late-night opening hours, they might be the only spot to procure one should the mood strike. Among the classics is Vienna’s own Ottakringer beer, alongside other Austrian brews such as Wieselburger, all of which are typically served in a can.

How Loro Piana CEO Damien Bertrand is doubling down on a commitment to luxury

“I’m a man of product,” says Damien Bertrand, the CEO of LVMH-owned luxury house Loro Piana. “Whether it’s haute couture, cosmetics or textiles, I love to feel exceptional quality.” Monocle meets Bertrand in his neutral-hued office in central Milan, which has been his base since he took up the post three years ago. It is filled with the kinds of well-crafted products that he is so fond of – Loro Piana’s signature Bale bucket bag, for example, and the men’s sharp Spagna jacket. We also spot the winning entry of this year’s Loro Piana Knit Design Award: a cashmere sweater inspired by knights’ armour, made by two students from the École Duperré in Paris.

“I’m sorry that the winners ended up being French, OK?” he says with a smile. Bertrand grew up in the south of France. He went on to serve as managing director of Christian Dior Couture for five years, after a stint in the US working in the fast-moving world of cosmetics for L’Oréal Group. “Every morning, on my way to work, I would walk past the Loro Piana shop on Madison Avenue and find it so intriguing. I would go in to touch and feel the products, so I developed a sensory knowledge of the brand a long time ago.”

That’s perhaps why Bertrand adjusted so quickly to life in Italy and dived headfirst into the CEO job, asking to visit all of the company’s factories in Piedmont, tour its global boutique network and speak to its clients to deepen his understanding of the brand, which was founded in 1924. “I remember ending up in a client’s dressing room until 02.00, looking at Loro Piana jackets that were more than 25 years old,” he says. “They were absolutely perfect. He knew exactly when he had bought them and how many times he had worn them, which was plenty.”

It was clear to Bertrand that he had a gem in his hands but he also sensed that there were “a few things missing”. Loro Piana needed to modernise its campaign imagery, develop stronger womenswear and accessories businesses, and become a bigger part of the fashion zeitgeist. “We set out to create a vision that would position us at the pinnacle of luxury,” he says.

A mere three years later, he is already well on his way to achieving his goal, with several sell-out handbag designs, new jewellery and sunglasses collections and a quickly expanding global clientele that has become “addicted” to Loro Piana’s feeling of quality – whether it’s the supple suede of the label’s boat shoes, the fine cashmere of its polo shirts or the ultra-soft Gift of Kings wool used to craft its sharp Traveller jackets, trench coats, lounge sets and more.

A lot of work has also gone into adding a more contemporary flair. The Loro Piana team has always been obsessed with producing the best textiles but it has now become equally fixated with refining a new signature silhouette: relaxed, perfectly draped and designed to always hug the body of the wearer. “We’re a house of no logos, so how do you create a recognisable silhouette?” asks Bertrand. “We had beautiful products but not this type of modern silhouette. That was the hardest thing to do but it affects everything, including the brand image.”

The CEO points out a photograph from a recent campaign that’s hanging on his wall. It shows a couple lounging in Scotland, wearing matching riding boots and tweed-and-wool ensembles. “It’s more contemporary but, at the same time, it’s very Loro Piana,” says Bertrand. “And you can tell the quality of the boots and the sweater jacket that he wears.” He adds that, since Loro Piana began to present its men’s and women’s collections together and establish a stronger dialogue between the two, the company, which had hitherto largely focused on menswear, has been able to attract a wider female clientele. Textile innovation is another key ingredient in his recipe for success. Under Bertrand’s watch, the business has introduced new textiles such as cash-denim, a mix of cashmere and Japanese denim that is used to create some of the world’s softest, most luxurious jeans, among other denim items. This summer, Loro Piana also debuted pieces featuring graphene, a heat-absorbent material obtained from graphite, mixed with wool to create durable performance wear. “Our clients love spending time outdoors so we created a new capsule,” says Bertrand. “The combination of natural fibres and performance is very rare but I wanted to enhance the brand’s reputation for innovation.” He stresses, however, that such developments require time and can only be rolled out in small quantities.

That isn’t how fashion brands tend to do business today – especially if they are part of a publicly traded company such as lvmh with financial targets to hit every quarter. But the rules are clearly different for Loro Piana, which seeks to position itself at the highest echelons of luxury. “Today many companies use the 101 marketing playbook, where you appoint a famous creative director and then dress a star for the red carpet,” says Bertrand. “But that kind of thing isn’t always aligned with our dna. Loro Piana isn’t Dior and Dior isn’t Loro Piana. The ethos here is about discretion, subtlety and sophistication.”

That’s why Bertrand has made a point of avoiding quick fixes, such as celebrity placements or runway shows, in favour of a longer-term view. “Our clients are connoisseurs,” he says. “There’s that famous saying: ‘If you know, you know.’ Though our brand name isn’t written anywhere, people recognise the quality and details.” All of this comes at a cost: €3,200 for a wool jacket, for example, or €16,000 for a shearling coat. What does he think of those who argue that the price tags are unreasonable? “They are not Loro Piana customers,” says Bertrand, who is perhaps the most knowledgeable customer of all and claims to be able to identify his brand’s cashmere in the dark just by feeling it. “They haven’t experienced the quality to understand it. We’re masters of fibres, so the idea is that you’re buying a piece that will carry you through a long stretch of your life. Some artists even tell me that they can only compose music in Loro Piana clothing, because of the feeling of confidence that it gives them.”

Bertrand applies the same luxury mindset to his management style, taking time to execute projects to perfection, paying close attention to minuscule details and daring to place bold bets. It’s why he hasn’t tried to expand the business’s retail footprint too quickly, despite increased demand across the globe. “What we’re doing instead is making sure that we have our boutiques in the best locations – Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, for instance, has just reopened,” he says. “If we are offering the crème de la crème of products, we need to offer the crème de la crème of experiences too. I’m not in a hurry. The beauty of my job is that I don’t have to rush to create beautiful things, such as our pop-up in Zermatt. That was a first for us but it became the talk of the town.”

Bertrand’s approach is clearly working. “We’re seeing dynamic growth that’s quite balanced in every region,” he says. Luca Solca, a senior analyst at wealth-management firm Bernstein, tells Monocle that Loro Piana has been “one of the best brands in the lvmh group in recent years. It caters perfectly for high-end consumers who are veering towards casual wear, in the most elegant, sophisticated and expensive way possible.”

The increased visibility of the company’s pieces on social media and hit television programmes such as Succession has also played a part in the transformation of the business. This type of publicity often proves to be a double-edged sword, with the buzz dying down as quickly as it was generated and customers moving on. Can Loro Piana sustain the momentum at a time when fashion seems to be preparing for a return to maximalism?

Bertrand is certain that the only way is up. He says that the leather-goods and accessories departments that barely existed three years ago will continue to grow and debut new hits. At the brand’s most recent presentation – at Milan’s Palazzo Belgioioso, where elegant tailoring was paired with pillbox hats, silk scarves and new iterations of the loafer – the CEO’s ambition to offer a head-to-toe Loro Piana look while growing in all accessories categories was clear.

He is also confident that conversations taking place online and the direction of trends won’t affect his brand’s customer base, which has a different set of priorities. “Social media can sometimes create a sort of hyper-visibility all on its own,” says Bertrand. “You can be aware of it but you can’t control it.” He adds that Loro Piana products are limited by their nature and will never suffer from online oversaturation. “We don’t often work with influencers but, if people want to talk about our pieces, I welcome it because it’s interesting. We’re not loud but we don’t need to be silent.” This was the attitude that guided Bertrand’s decision to take over 36 windows at UK department store Harrods from 7 November to 2 January, to ring in the festive season and celebrate the brand’s centenary. This takeover at one of London’s busiest retail destinations is far from quiet; yet, in true Loro Piana fashion, the designs of the windows are elegant, logo-free and utterly charming. The idea was to create a “workshop of wonders” and tell the story of the company through wooden figurines, as though the pages of a children’s storybook had come to life. One window, for instance, showcases the journey of vicuña wool from animals to atelier and then finished product.

“Loro Piana’s discreet, logo-free approach speaks to a clientele that values substance over spectacle,” says Simon Longland, fashion buying director at Harrods, who praises the label’s sense of precision. “It captures the magic of the season without relying on overt branding. The success of its accessories lines has set new standards in the industry and its influence on contemporary footwear design is evident. And these categories are just the beginning. There is substantial potential for continued growth, as the brand deepens its offering in soft accessories and other luxury lifestyle products.”

The concept of an open book presented across the Harrods windows is particularly poignant; it is perhaps a subtle statement of Loro Piana’s confidence in its manufacturing practices, after allegations surfaced earlier this year that the company was sourcing vicuña wool for its garments from unfairly remunerated indigenous workers in Peru. The brand has since responded with statements of fair payments – between $300 (€277) and $400 (€370) per kilogramme of vicuña wool, according to a statement – and stressed its commitment to working in Peru, not only to refute the accusations but to honour the 30-year relationships that it has built with the country’s farmers.

“Our aim is to limit our environmental impact and safeguard the future of the next generation,” says Bertrand. “We have been doing this for many years but our efforts are intensifying. For instance, in Aqueripa, we created water reserves in 2018 to protect the animals and help the communities [which were suffering from droughts]. At a time when people are spending more and more time on their phones and might think that the world is virtual, we want to emphasise the beauty of the artisan world.”

It has been 100 years since Loro Piana started as a family business of wool traders and merchants. Both the brand and the fashion industry have completely transformed since then, with Loro Piana now owned by the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate and evolving well beyond its original textile business. Yet, for Bertrand, the label’s core values of family, quality and sophistication remain very much intact. The Arnaults, the powerful French family behind lvmh, have been long-time customers and fans, so they respect the company’s founding ethos and Bertrand’s signature strategy of evolution versus revolution.

That’s why, for the year ahead, Bertrand is focusing on “consolidating the vision”, rather than trying to keep up with market changes. “That is a part of luxury: knowing where you want to go and not looking left and right,” he says.

In many ways, Bertrand’s philosophy serves as a reminder of what luxury fashion should stand for at a time when too much attention is being paid to logos, seasonal hits and items that serve as status symbols. “Luxury is something with soul that you buy for yourself, not for others,” he says. “It’s like the private dinner that we hosted in Lake Como and didn’t communicate. Or, as Sergio Loro Piana would have said with his signature humour, we really should be talking more about quality and less about luxury.”
loropiana.com

Cabin fever: Three stand-out holiday homes in Norway

For centuries, Norwegians from all walks of life have been making their way to seasonal rural residences. These hytter (holiday homes) and årestuer (traditional huts) offer a base for favourite Norwegian pastimes of hunting, fishing, hiking and cross-country skiing.

With some 450,000 of these structures spread across the country (and one in three families in Norway owning one), it’s no surprise that some of the country’s finest architects are turning a hand to their design. Across the next few pages, we visit three outstanding examples.

1.
The blended build
Norefjell
Office Kim Lenschow

Cabin culture and the desire for a holiday in nature – whether a lengthy summer on the lake or cosy winter weekend – is not unique to Norway among northern European nations. But the development of the hytte is. This humble holiday cottage has its roots in the vacation habits of the country’s city dwellers and their desire to escape from urban areas, going off-grid in simple huts, so as to allow themselves to be immersed in Norway’s rugged landscapes. These forces are still present in the hytte of today.

“These are places where you step out of your normal routines and live life differently, almost allowing yourself to be bored,” says Kim Lenschow of these countryside retreats. The Copenhagen-based Norwegian architect has recently finished one of these small, traditional timber holiday cabins in a rocky area northwest of Oslo.

Located 800 metres above sea level in Norefjell, this cabin was commissioned by a friend of the architect, who discovered the plot while searching for the perfect spot to build his own country escape. “This project was about bringing traditional elements of a hytte to life through modern construction,” says Lenschow, whose approach to architecture is defined by a desire to create harmony between the built world and the natural environment.

“The area surrounding Norefjell is beautiful,” says Lenschow. “You have this rocky terrain contrasted by spruce trees.” The architect adds that one of his guiding principles for the project was to ensure that the cabin complemented its surroundings. “We wanted to understand the relationship between architecture and nature.”

To explore this relationship, Lenschow identified the need for the building’s colour and materials to work in harmony with the surroundings. “Architecture and nature are opposites in a way, because you’re adding something to a landscape with a specific logic in mind,” he says. “So the most effective approach was to emphasise simplicity and use colours that complemented the muted tones of the woodlands.” The resulting palette of primarily earthy tones allows the home to bleed visually into the background, and is particularly evident in the exterior surfaces, which feature two distinct elements.

On one side, the façade is finished with a textured render applied over the underlying brick structure. This grooved, light-grey surface gives the exterior a unique character – and creates striking shadows on sunny days – without clashing with the rocky terrain on which it sits. “We wanted to add subtle details to make it clear that this wasn’t just part of the rock,” says Lenschow. “But it also could not be too bold.”

On the opposite side, facing the sloping landscape and expansive woodland, is a façade made from spruce sourced from the local region. The timber is treated using iron vitriol, which speeds up the initial decay of the wood to create a protective surface that can endure harsh winters. Connection with the landscape is enhanced on this side of the building thanks to three-metre-high windows that frame sweeping views of the surrounding terrain. To further intensify this relationship with the natural world, Lenschow positioned the building in such a way that the boulders and natural elements block sightlines to the road. “The surrounding rocks almost become part of the furniture,” he says.

The colour, material and windows have helped this hytte to blend into the landscape but Lenschow didn’t want to completely disguise the building, so he opted for a straightforward geometric design. “It wasn’t about coming up with clever shapes to camouflage the house,” says the architect. “I like it when a building is proudly a work of architecture but still resonates with the setting.”

It’s a theme that continues inside, where the hytte’s floors belie the challenging terrain on which it sits. Rather than smoothing out the plot, Lenschow designed the structure so that the site’s varied grade define its rooms, utilising single steps to act as dividers between them. “We worked with the natural levels of the ground to section off different spaces,” he says. A bedroom sits on one level and a living room on another, with a separate kitchen level creating the sensation of walking on uneven terrain as you move through the house. “You almost feel like you’re outside.”

The interiors are kept simple. Many of the rooms are clad in a light wood, which is bathed in natural light even during the darkest months of the year. There’s a sense of spaciousness too, with minimal furnishings – a mix of Nordic design classics and wooden pieces – complementing the building’s palette. “The furniture, like the building, is very simple,” says Lenschow. “It gives the space a cosy feel.”

Key items include a rattan and teak cabinet by Danish homeware brand Nordal, and a modular L-shaped sofa in cream that defines the lounge area. Next to it, a step leads to the dining space, which features a long wooden table surrounded by Bambi 57/4 dining chairs – a 1955 design by Rastad & Relling now produced by Norwegian furniture brand Fjordfiesta. Behind this, floor-to-ceiling windows with light-hued semi-transparent curtains diffuse light throughout the space.

For Lenschow, designing this hytte meant creating a new structure equipped with modern amenities, while preserving the traditional essence of an off-grid retreat by way of simple construction and a deep connection with nature. “What the modern country escape looks like is an ongoing conversation in Norway,” says the architect. “It’s not about going back in time; it’s about each individual’s interpretation of what it means to be immersed in nature. For some, this means having a cabin in a remote spot, only accessible by skis. For others, it’s simply about being surrounded by stillness. What a hytte means to you is very personal.”
kimlenschow.com

2.
The new vision
Årestua
Gartnerfuglen Arkitekter

“We believe that every building should have its own soul,” says architect Ole Larsen of Oslo’s Gartnerfuglen Arkitekter, a firm he co-founded with Astrid Wang and Olav Lunde Arneberg in 2014. “Our aim is to uncover the unique potential of every project, rather than applying a specific signature style to everything we do,” adds Wang.

Case in point is Årestua, a newly finished holiday home for a family, inspired by the traditional design of årestue: traditional wooden homes built around an open fireplace. Located in Telemark, a region southwest of Oslo, it has been built using traditional methods, with specialist carpenters carefully stacking timber logs to form walls. “This construction method was a beautiful way to connect architecture with its place,” says Wang.

It’s an approach that also allowed the architects to explore how traditional architectural vernaculars, such as the årestue, can be reimagined for modern living. “Traditionally, this type of cabin is quite dark and enclosed, a place to retreat to after a long day outdoors,” says Larsen. “We wanted to preserve some traditional elements while also being innovative.”

In response to this ambition, the house’s layout is organised into five distinct volumes that house the bedrooms and bathroom, all centred around a main living area fitted with a fireplace. Expansive windows frame sweeping views of the snowy woodlands, creating a seamless connection between indoors and the surrounding landscape. The furniture is carefully positioned to encourage connection around the central living area. “Using the space is about being together,” says Wang. “We’ve added large windows to bring in plenty of natural light. That transforms the space.”

There are also unexpected architectural interventions that respond to the habits of its inhabitants: a small outdoor staircase by one of the doors provides a cosy spot for the family to enjoy classic Norwegian clover-shaped waffles while taking in the view. Additionally, one of the connecting rooms, elevated above the others, includes a window specifically positioned for observing the eagles that soar around the cabin.

“Building the right cabin is all about the small details,” says Larsen. “As an architect, it’s essential to keep an open mind when designing a cabin and to let the location and the inhabitants shape the space.”
gartnerfuglen.com

3.
The simple space
Mylla
Fjord Arkitekter

Despite its proximity to the city, the landscape surrounding Oslo remains largely unspoilt, characterised by mountains, vast stretches of forest, occasional lakes and cross-country ski trails. And though the area is dotted with cabins to which those in the Norwegian capital retreat during the holidays, for the architects practising here, creating buildings that have a “light touch” is essential to preserving these environmental qualities.

It’s something that Oslo-based studio Fjord Arkitekter has done with aplomb on a cabin project called Mylla. The design of this contemporary hytte is rooted in simplicity and sustainability. “The construction is made simple and rational,” says Fjord Arkitekter partner Finn Magnus Rasmussen. “And the materials are durable and natural.”

For proof, he points to the exterior, which is clad in pine treated in the Møre Royal style, a time-honoured Norwegian method that involves vacuum-cooking the wood in oil, creating a durable and weather-resistant surface that ages gracefully. This approach reduces the need for extensive ongoing maintenance or harmful chemical weatherproofing treatments. The hytte also uses a geothermal heating system. But, recognising that green credentials mean little without quality space, the architects have prioritised a calming interior. Oiled spruce walls and ceilings create a warm and inviting atmosphere, while a central sculptural staircase divides the space into zones.

“The cabin is elongated and narrow for the best adaptation to the plot,” says Rasmussen. “It provides distance between the quiet and active parts of the cabin. It might have a sober exterior but when you get inside, it is rich in spatial qualities.”
fjordarkitekter.no

Sapporo Snow Festival is an icy display of best in snow

In Sapporo’s Odori Park, the wind is howling, the temperature is minus 7c and snow is blowing horizontally. The competitors preparing their intricate sculptures for the city’s annual week-long snow festival, held every February, couldn’t be happier – the 78 teams of amateur snow sculptors know that warmth is the enemy. Since 1965, this section of the competition has been dedicated to local entries and the winner is voted for by the public.

It’s day five for the volunteer team from Toko Electrical Construction Co. Every day, two groups of 15 have been scraping and shaping a pile of snow into a giant image of Yubaba, the big-haired bathhouse proprietor from Studio Ghibli’s blockbuster Spirited Away. The team won in 2023 with the Catbus from another Ghibli film, My Neighbour Totoro, and are keen to do so again. Part-time snow sculptor Yasuko Kitada, armed with a clipboard, is in charge. “It’s warmer this year so it was quite difficult in the beginning but today is really cold – that’s what we want.”

Nearby, a team of artists is hoping that its sculpture of Japanese baseball megastar Shohei Ohtani will be popular with the voting public. With only a couple of days to go, tensions are high. “If there’s any melting, we’re allowed to fix it only once during the week before the judging,” says Kitada. She says that climate change is having an effect. “It’s warmer during the day now, even if it’s still cold at night.” Snow has been trucked in from mountains outside the city.

Further up the park are the out-of-competition sculptures, so professionally executed that it wouldn’t be fair to pit them against the amateurs. The top draws are usually the building-sized efforts – from the Taj Mahal to kabuki theatres – by soldiers from Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF). Some 3,600 SDF personnel stationed at nearby Makomanai are working on two epic pieces: one is a huge profile of characters from the Hokkaido-set manga series Golden Kamuy; the other is a recreation of old Sapporo Station, which was in use until 1952. By night, the sculptures are illuminated as vast crowds descend on the festival, with food-and-drink stands supplying refreshment.

The Snow Festival attracts visitors from all over the world, providing a welcome boost for the economy. This year there were 2.39 million attendees – numbers not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic. And the winner of the citizens’ competition? Yubaba, with Shohei Ohtani coming third. And with the top three teams gaining automatic entry to next year’s event, Kitada and her clipboard will be hoping for a third consecutive victory in 2025.