Issues

Parkview Mountain House: A creative retreat on Utah’s Wasatch cliffside

Few developers would see a 30-degree cliff face in Utah’s Wasatch mountains as an ideal spot for a holiday property. But Toronto-based Globizen’s vision of an Alpine-inspired guesthouse that remains popular out of season meant quite literally pursuing a more creative angle. “I have always associated these mountains with an artistic energy,” says Brandon Donnelly, Globizen’s founder.

Built in collaboration with New York architecture firm Mattaforma, Parkview Mountain House is a 20- to 30-minute drive from Salt Lake City. Across three floors, it has three bedrooms and a living space with a rooftop terrace, work desks and an alfresco hot tub.

Its bespoke creative programme targets the “shoulder” months in late spring and early autumn, when fewer people visit Utah’s mountains to go hiking or partake in winter sports. To entice writers, artists and musicians, Globizen made a highly unconventional choice: the three-day residencies at Parkview Mountain House would be free as long as guests contribute something. “Whether it’s artwork, sculptures, photos or videos, they just have to add to the cultural archive,” says Donnelly.

Nature was integral to the design process. “We were forced by the landscape to decide what was essential for helping creatives to focus,” says Lindsey Wikstrom, Mattaforma’s co-founder. “It’s a steep hill, with amazing wildlife in all seasons. Deer wander down from the mountains. It’s hard not to get inspired.”
pmhpc.com

‘We mustn’t be afraid of a connected world’: Jerome Frost on beauty, grit and reviving cities

Founded in 1946, global built environment consultancy Arup has evolved with our cities. Today it employs more than 17,000 people – architects and designers but also psychologists and ecologists – in more than 130 countries. Its CEO, Jerome Frost, shares his insights into what makes a city tick and why humanity, grit and beauty remain important.

We need to tackle waste but what’s all this about upcycling skyscrapers?
In an age of high inflation in materials and limited resources, there’s a sense that we have to do more with less. We estimate that about 10 per cent of the 40,000 tall buildings across the globe are reaching the end of their lifespan so we’re looking at the restoration of some fantastic examples, such as Quay Quarter Tower. Rather than demolishing it, we have saved 90 per cent of the core and a huge amount of carbon by stripping and restoring the building. We are entering a golden age of urban renewal.

How is technology changing the way you work?
It’s giving us an extraordinary opportunity and will be at the heart of what we call “total design”, the philosophy that motivates us as an organisation. But we need to ask the right questions. That means having the curiosity to go beyond the norm and what worked in the past – to imagine the future.

We talk about efficiency and smart cities but do we talk enough about beauty and grit?
I know all about beauty and grit from living in London, which has a lot to offer. I was a consultant on the King’s Cross scheme, a combination of old and new. We mustn’t be afraid of a connected world, while keeping what makes cities human, liveable and vital. That’s an imperative.
arup.com

‘Madrid and Lisbon are stealing the spotlight’: Knight Frank on Europe’s hottest homes

Knight Frank is a global property consultancy with more than 600 offices and some 21,500 staff, including a research team that tracks every trend in the market. Ahead of Mipim, we asked Kate Everett-Allen, Knight Frank’s head of European residential research, to unpack the company’s recent European outlook report.

Which European cities have the most robust markets?
Madrid and Lisbon are performing particularly well. We are also seeing an interest in Cascais and Comporta in Portugal. There are several factors at play. There’s the economic side – these places are due to outperform a large part of the Eurozone over the course of the next 12 to 24 months. There’s also a lot of investment going into infrastructure. With Madrid, we have seen significant interest, not just from traditional places such as Latin America but also from the US and northern Europe.

What makes Madrid so desirable?
Accessibility, quality of life, healthcare, education and good international schools. But there’s also the sense of security that you get from being in Madrid compared to some other European cities.

Is taxation helping some cities to attract wealthier buyers?
What we have seen over the past couple of years is that tax hasn’t featured as highly as we thought it would. It has moved up to joint first place [as a trigger for people to move] but it’s not the only key driver. Business opportunities and political stability are also driving cross-border flows and relocations.

Reports suggest that Milan is enticing a lot of prosperous property owners.
Milan is of interest and we have seen a lot of demand. Italy has now changed its flat-tax rules twice but the good thing is that it’s been quick and transparent. We have also seen some outflow from Milan after people have been there a year or two, to places such as Lake Como and Tuscany.

Are London’s richest selling up their homes because the tax rules for so-called non-doms were changed?
It’s more nuanced than the headlines suggest. A lot of people have not sold up. Instead, they have kept their property and rented it out. Stockholm ranked the highest in your survey of house-price growth.

What’s fuelling demand there?
Stockholm’s robustness is actually a correction narrative. Prices fell by 5 to 10 per cent and now they’re just recovering. Madrid, Lisbon and Dublin are all close behind in our price forecast. How do you see the European property market developing? We think that there’s a range of tier-two cities that will come under the microscope more: Bordeaux, Lausanne, Porto.

How Nayla de Freige saved ‘L’Orient-Le Jour’ and reinvented Lebanese media

Recent years in Lebanon have been tumultuous, not least for the country’s media organisations. One publication has thrived thanks to its spirited boss and her bold decision-making. Here we meet the CEO of ‘L’Orient-Le Jour’, Nayla de Freige.   

“Every morning we’d have our newspaper with our coffee, as the French say,” says Nayla de Freige. The CEO of Lebanon’s leading French-language newspaper grew up with L’Orient-Le Jour, in which her father was a shareholder. Little did the young De Freige know that decades later, she’d be at the helm, having saved the print paper from the brink and successfully brought the publication’s esteemed journalism into the digital sphere. 

Long a mainstay of Beirut’s literati, L’Orient-Le Jour became a legend during the Lebanese civil war. As other journalists and publications retreated to the mountains, L’Orient-Le Jour reporters stayed in their offices in west Beirut, churning out the daily paper under heavy bombardment. “Some of the team were crossing the demarcation line every day,” says De Freige. “Our editor was killed by sniper fire. It was a local resistance paper. Salaries were meaningless; it was about a dedication to the cause.”

Meanwhile De Freige, having graduated from the American University of Beirut, was living between Beirut and Paris, raising her young daughter. She came on board at L’Orient-Le Jour to create Génération Kalachnikov, a series in which she and film producer Maroun Bagdadi interviewed Lebanon’s youth about their lives during the war. The experience inspired De Freige’s next project, a weekly supplement for young people called Les Copains. “For 10 years we were a young team explaining to the youth what was happening in the region,” she says. “During the war, people in Lebanon were living in ghettos and not going to other areas. We wanted to create a link between them [and the world].”

When her supplement came to an end, De Freige moved on to economic magazine Le Commerce du Levant. But in the postwar boom of the 1990s, it became clear that L’Orient-Le Jour was in trouble – it needed a financial and staffing overhaul. De Freige stepped in as CEO in 2000. 

After the first few years of tough decisions and “reinvigoration”, as she calls it, came another challenge: digitalisation. In 2014, L’Orient-Le Jour launched the region’s first paid-for news website. A paywall was a risk but De Freige was certain that it would work. “Fifty five per cent of our revenue was coming from advertising,” she says. “We were in crisis, with advertising dropping. I knew we could count on the readers. We had to build a model to help us stay alive.”

In a field where most outlets are politically aligned and funded, L’Orient-Le Jour has maintained its independence thanks to its pay model – about 70 per cent of its budget comes from subscribers. That has allowed the paper to blossom even as competitors folded. “We were becoming not just a local paper but also a regional one, talking more and more to diaspora and the whole world.”

In 2020, as Lebanon’s economy crashed, De Freige launched the paper’s English-language edition, L’Orient Today. Now it is the first port of call for foreigners wanting to understand Lebanon. De Freige’s goal is clear: to elevate Arab voices and give international readers a perspective they won’t find in Western media. “The form might change but the mission to make a new Middle East will continue,” she says.

De Freige has big plans for the paper, including an Arabic edition. “This job requires creativity, experimentation and risk-taking,” she says. “We believe that we can be part of building something new.” If reinvigoration was the goal, L’Orient-Le Jour has the right woman at the helm.
lorientlejour.com

Penthouses for poodles: The rise of Japan’s hi-tech, pet-first homes

Lamb, a two-year-old toy poodle, is kicking back at a well-appointed apartment in Ikegami in the south of Tokyo. She has the run of the place, including her own area with a bed, toys and a built-in deodorising system to keep the air fragrant. There’s a niche for her buggy at the door and a pet-washing station at the entrance to clean her paws after a run in the park. All 15 apartments in this new development are designed for pet owners and their animals. Dog trainers can be booked for house calls, every unit has non-slip wood flooring and cat walkways have been installed along the windows. An animal hospital, park and pet salons are all within walking distance.

Properties such as this one, which comes under developer Asahi Kasei’s premier Hebel Haus brand, are a new frontier: the rental market has largely been stubbornly pet resistant and many tenancy agreements include a strict no-animal clause. “In Japan, the number of pets exceeds the number of children under the age of 15,” says Tetsuya Watanabe from Asahi Kasei. “Despite this shift, there remains a shortage of rental housing where people can live with their pets.”

Hebel Haus saw the business potential and now has about 3,000 pet-minded buildings, comprising 19,000 residential units, primarily across Tokyo, Hiroshima and Osaka. Its rental properties range from one-bedroom apartments to three-bedroom flats for families. The brand’s mission to promote a “pet-friendly society” was boosted last year by its presence at the Interpet trade fairs in Tokyo and Osaka, where crowds queued for information and a cute photograph of their animal.

Fluffy, a pet property brand under developer Profitz, is pursuing the same goal, with four buildings and 87 rental units in central Tokyo. “In many so-called animal-friendly rental properties, pet owners and non-owners tend to live side-by-side, which can sometimes create friction around rules and daily routines,” says Daisuke Ishida, the business director of Profitz. “At the same time, particularly in urban areas, more and more people want to live with pets so there is a clear gap in the market for housing designed specifically for them. This inspired the concept of designing homes with animals in mind from the outset, aiming to improve the quality of life for both owners and their pets.”

Every Fluffy property is equipped with features similar to those offered by Hebel Haus, from paw-washing stations, slip-resistant flooring and special wall finishes to hooks for leads, safety gates to prevent intrepid animals from darting outside and the all-important deodorising technology. Some properties also offer monitoring cameras and environmental sensors, as well as custom pet furniture. Residents receive complimentary access to round-the-clock veterinary care, preferential rates at affiliated pet hotels and priority notifications for vacancies when relocating between Fluffy properties.

Though tenants have to pay a pet premium, demand has been high and vacancies are rare. “Compared to conventional rentals, these properties tend to attract tenant profiles with a higher household income,” says Ishida. He says that Fluffy’s core audience consists of dual-income couples in their thirties and forties without children, couples in their fifties and high-income single professionals.

Creating thoughtful, animal-inclusive residences has been good for the Hebel Haus business too. After a tentative start in the pet-property game about 20 years ago, the brand is expanding and finessing its offer. There is strong demand from owners of medium-sized and large dogs, as well as people who own more than one pet. Cat owners are also turning out to be a bigger consumer group than expected.

Meanwhile, Fluffy’s tenants have been offering feedback, including calls for pet-sitting and dog-walking services, professional photography, animal-friendly car sharing and events such as yoga sessions or small concerts where furry friends are welcome. “What the residents tell us is revealing,” says Ishida.“They feel more at ease knowing that their neighbours are also pet lovers. These animals naturally foster connections, encouraging conversation and a stronger sense of community.”
hebel-haus.com

The Cinephile’s 2026 checklist: A Berlin icon, a Brazilian hit and the Criterion closet

1.
Our favourite cinema
Zoo Palast
Berlin

Cynics might fret over the future of cinemas but Berlin’s Zoo Palast is proof of the enduring appeal of premium environments showing great films. Of its seven screens, the spacious Berlinale festival favourite, Saal 1, is our top pick; those in the know say that seat H22 is its sweet spot, positioned at just the right angle for the best view and clearest sound.

Beloved for its heritage architecture, Zoo Palast has a long bar that serves proper cocktails, snacks and coffee. Our recommendation? Order the Hugo (sparkling wine, elderflower, mint) and a serving of freshly popped corn (salty, of course). Despite its sense of history, Zoo Palast is no relic.

The cinema combines the full 1950s movie-palace experience with cutting-edge projection and sound (Dolby Atmos has been installed for the main screen). It’s European cinema at its very best.
zoopalast.premiumkino.de

2.
Film to watch
‘The Secret Agent’
Brazil

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t dish out a prize for the year’s coolest film but, but if it did, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political crime thriller The Secret Agent would be a deserving winner. It follows a university professor (Wagner Moura) during Brazil’s years under dictatorship as he travels from São Paulo to the seaside city of Recife during Carnival, hoping to reunite with his son.

The film’s healthy dose of satire keeps it from being too po-faced and, despite its historical setting, it was shaped by more recent events. “I was writing about the 1970s but living in the madness of the Bolsonaro years,” says Mendonça Filho. “A lot of the energy in the film came from that crazy, dreadful moment in contemporary Brazilian history.”

Last year, I’m Still Here, directed by Walter Salles, won Brazil its first Academy Award for best international feature and The Secret Agent scooped the most prizes at Cannes, including for best actor and best director.

Whether Mendonça Filho’s picture wins big at the Oscars or not, it’s the latest sign that there’s a growing appetite for Brazilian cinematic flair across the globe.

‘The Secret Agent’ is in cinemas now. Listen to the full interview with Kleber Mendonça Filho and Wagner Moura on Monocle Radio.

3.
The movie curator
Criterion Collection
New York

Streaming services haven’t killed off physical media completely and for that we can partly thank the Criterion Collection. Since 1984, the New York-based company has been dedicated to preserving some of the most important films – from classics to new releases – in physical formats. Some of this year’s Oscar nominees are already scheduled to get the Criterion treatment, including Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent.

Criterion has released films on formats from laser disc to DVD and Blu-ray (the organisation also has its own streaming channel). If a picture is selected to enter the collection, it’s an affirmation of its historical and cultural significance. The label has maintained its own relevance with its savvy social media presence – the popular Criterion Closet series features filmmakers and actors picking their favourite titles off the well-stocked shelves in the company’s New York headquarters. For film lovers, these video shorts are guaranteed to be inspiring (if a little envy-inducing too).
criterion.com

The star maker’s long game: Why casting director Nina Gold is the film industry’s new standard

Casting directors have always shaped cinema yet their work is rarely acknowledged by the public. Nina Gold is one of the film industry’s most successful star makers, able to spot a future Oscar-winner at 50 paces. And, this year, she might be on course to win one of her own. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it would launch a prize for Best Casting, many felt that it was long overdue. 

For Gold, whose career spans Game of Thrones, The Crown, Wolf Hall and Hamnet – for which she has received an inaugural nomination – the recognition lands with quiet satisfaction. “It’s fantastic,” she says, smiling over a cup of tea at her London office. “Casting directors did a lot of lobbying for many years. It felt like the right moment.” Gold is a warm, nurturing figure who takes her responsibility for the wellbeing of up-and-coming child stars just as seriously as maintaining the career momentum of industry legends.

She is quick to laugh and has a penchant for witty self-deprecation. Her work in casting began “entirely accidentally”: as a student, a friend asked her to be an extra in a music video and she was intrigued by the machinery behind it. “I thought, ‘God, this looks fabulous,’” says Gold. “I wanted to be one of those people.” Soon she was learning on the job in an era when “the only requirement was being willing to work for 48 hours without sleep”.

Moving on to larger projects, Gold was hooked by the mysterious chemistry between what was on the page and the person who brought it to life. Slowly, through working on commercials, then television and film, she built a career defined by passion for the form and curiosity about its different approaches. A pivotal collaboration came with Mike Leigh, first on commercials and then on the musical period drama Topsy-Turvy. Leigh’s famously exploratory process – developing characters through months of improvisation – sounds like a casting director’s nightmare but Gold describes it as education. “He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of British actors and a particular angle on acting,” she says. “He has taught me so much.”

Gold is careful with the language of “discovery” but certain names recur: John Boyega, who she cast in Attack the Block for his debut role after a gruelling audition process; Eddie Redmayne, who she championed for The Theory of Everything; Claire Foy, who had long been at the edges of stardom before The Crown changed everything. 

What sustains Gold is her long-term outlook. “People come back,” she says. “Claire [Foy] is a perfect example. She was always wonderful but it took the right moment.” Auditioning, she acknowledges, is “hell”. Despite the amount of rejections a role requires, “You want every actor who walks into the room to do well.”

Technology has changed the mechanics of casting – emailed self-tapes have replaced VHS tapes sent by couriers – but not its essence. But the talent pool has grown dauntingly large with the opening up of the industry. “There are so many more actors than there are roles,” says Gold. “If you’re a brilliant 28-year-old actress, there might be 700 others just like you.” Drama school remains useful, she notes, but no longer definitive. While pathways into acting have become varied, sustaining a career is more precarious than ever.

The biggest stars have “offer-only” status, which means that they don’t have to audition. She shrugs at the hierarchy. When it comes to selecting actors from this echelon, Gold draws on her “bank of knowledge” about their suitability, developed through 35 years of experience. But there are exceptions. Oscar-nominated Irish actor Paul Mescal came in for a chemistry read opposite Jessie Buckley in Hamnet. “He’s an incredibly modest non-egomaniac who is just not an arsehole. A brilliant actor,” says Gold.

As for the Oscar nomination, Gold treats it as a collective milestone rather than a personal victory. Even at the top of her game, she admits to not having all the answers. The job is part experience, part instinct, part art and part commerce. But her openness to all those seems to be why she’s so good at what she does. Casting isn’t about certainty. It’s about empathy and having the courage to proceed with a single vision among a thousand possibilities.

Three delights for print-lovers: A 24hr bookstore and two must-reads

1.
The bookshop that never shuts
Eslite Spectrum Songyan
Taipei

Taiwan is built around convenience. Corner shops are open 24/7 and markets operate into the early hours. Within this nonstop retail landscape sits Eslite Spectrum Songyan, a bookshop that never closes its doors. Run by Eslite, one of the largest Taiwanese companies in the sector, it functions less as a shop than as a civic space. Eslite first opened a round‑the‑clock spot in 1999. Last autumn, it relocated the concept to Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei, moving it into a former industrial site repurposed for cultural use. The shift allowed the shop to expand: it now holds about 250,000 books and features tiered teak seating and a 40‑metre‑long reading corridor made for lingering. The renovations have paid off. Foot traffic has risen by 30 per cent, while overall sales are up 70 per cent.

Late at night, teenagers sit cross-legged on the floor reading manga; in the morning, shift workers leaf through newspapers and current‑affairs titles. With about 50 locations worldwide, Eslite stands apart not for its scale but for treating reading as part of public life – at all hours.
eslitecorp.com

2.
The cartoon compendium
‘Paris’ by Joann Sfar
France

Bandes dessinées often transport the reader to far-flung lands of fantasy and adventure but comics can be moving when depicting more quotidian subjects. After a decade of strolling through the French capital with a box of watercolours for weekly Paris Match, French cartoonist Joann Sfar has gathered his observations in a new book, Paris.

Organised into chapters with titles such as “Little Parisians” and “Existentialism”, each page captures a scene from the modern city: lovers meeting via dating apps, students discussing AI and children falling asleep on the back of their parents’ bicycles. With gentle humour, Sfar delights in the absurdity of everyday life.
denoel.fr

3.
The high-flying magazine
‘Holland Herald’
Netherlands

At a time when many airlines are consigning their inflight publications to the digital realm to reduce costs, KLM’s Holland Herald stands apart. As the oldest inflight magazine in the skies, it’s especially nice to see it continuing to thrive. Founded in 1966, the Herald is as integral to the KLM experience as the miniature Delft Blue porcelain houses given away in business class.

Between its covers, you will find a pleasing mix of Netherlands‑related features, as well as those that look further afield, focusing on KLM destinations. With about 170 dots on its route map, depending on the season, that means plenty of variety – and it’s not only destination content. One recent issue includes everything from a photo essay about Venice to an article on the sixth sense of sharks. There is also an article about performance in sport with a Dutch track‑and‑field champion.

Next time you fly with KLM and find yourself scrolling through the onboard entertainment, check the seat pocket and take a moment to savour some content that you can still, thankfully, hold in both hands.
holland-herald.com

‘The format’s inconvenience accounts for its richness’: How Popeye’s editor took the magazine to global heights

Since Kinosuke Iwahori and Tatsuo Shimizu founded Magazine House in 1945, the Tokyo‑based lifestyle and fashion publisher has chronicled and helped to define Japan’s cultural currents. Its magazines have been a must‑read for generations: Popeye, a fashion monthly “for city boys”; Anan, a women’s fashion‑meets‑social‑issues weekly; and Brutus, the creative industries’ fortnightly handbook.

We sat down with Yuji Machida, the editor in chief of Popeye since 2019, at Magazine House’s Tokyo office in Higashi Ginza to ask about the enduring appeal of magazines, the state of the industry and Popeye’s first English‑language edition.

Before ‘Popeye’, you worked at ‘Anan’ and ‘Brutus’. What do these titles share?
‘Very Magazine House’ is a phrase I hear from publishers and fashion brands. It refers to the editorial originality and playfulness here. I associate Magazine House with amateurism, in a good way. We never assume that we know everything; we approach topics with curiosity, from our readers’ viewpoint.

What is the appeal of print media in the digital era?
At shops and cafés in Tokyo, books and magazines are part of the space. The texture and thickness of paper, its weight, the smell of ink, how it ages… These are part of the appeal of print media. For a publisher, choosing the format, paper stock, colours and textures is a pleasure. Having to turn pages makes the two‑page‑spread format unique; it dictates our reporting. The format’s inconvenience accounts for its richness.

What are the key elements to creating beautiful, information-dense magazines
People who love magazines don’t just read articles. They notice what’s in the corners of photographs – the smallest details. Popeye’s current style comes from layering things to reward careful reading.

Magazine House is 80 years old and 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Popeye’. Could you tell us what you think about the future?
Print magazines won’t disappear. But expanding overseas will be a major test for us. The launch of Popeye’s English‑language edition last September made us think about the global market. We found more readers abroad than we’d ever imagined and we plan to publish two more English‑language issues in 2026. How we build relationships with readers and clients will be crucial.
magazineworld.jp

Aitana, the new voice of Catalan electropop

Rosalía dominated the charts in 2025 but where should you turn if you want to tune in to another Catalan pop princess? Allow us to introduce Aitana. The 26-year-old Aitana Ocaña Morales – known by mononym Aitana – first stepped into the limelight in 2017 on reality-TV show Operación Triunfo. Since then, she has had a slew of megahits in Spain with her strand of electropop that’s impossible not to dance to.

Aitana’s latest album, Cuarto Azul, is a triumph of shimmering synths and has a delightful poppy bounce. She has collaborated with the likes of Puerto Rican rapper Myke Towers for the tropical track “Sentimiento Natural” and the Spanish duo Fangoria for the moody “La Chica Perfecta”. The sweet melancholia of “6 de Febrero” and the uplifting “Superestrella” are also notable singles. Aitana is multi-faceted; her collaborations extend past music to include a Netflix documentary, while she has also been a muse for Fendi.

With her upcoming world tour, 2026 promises to be the year that Aitana will go global – cementing her status (in the words of her biggest single) as a superestrella.