Issues

Monocle joins Lithuania’s newest conscripts to find out how it defends Nato’s eastern flank

The world is facing a number of hybrid threats. In Europe, the return of large-scale land warfare has led furrow-browed defence ministers to issue warnings about the transition from a “post-war” to a “pre-war” world. There and elsewhere, governments are grappling with the dangers posed by a changing climate and urban anomie. The 2020s have been marked by health emergencies, civil disorder and supply-chain disruption. None of these looks set to abate.

Such times call for calm heads and forward planning. Over the following pages, we look at three examples of countries and organisations doing their best to ready themselves for the worst: conscription in Lithuania, elite police in France and disaster management in the US. This is our Security Survey – at a time when we should all be prepared.

Moments ago, Monocle was forced to abandon its battered station wagon on a mud track under Lithuania’s cloudy skies and hop in the back of an army-issue Mercedes-Benz GD. But now the driver – Sergeant Vidas Stasaitis, clearly doing his best to live up to his title of community outreach officer – decides that he is going to have some fun. Throwing his foot on the accelerator, he launches the off-roader at the lunar-like craters created by the day’s rain. At one point the infallible machine totters at a 45-degree angle, sending its civilian cargo hurtling towards the roof, before the engine wins and it lurches forwards.

Back on solid ground, our destination is a series of fields surrounded by woodland that make up the Lithuanian army’s Zukauskas training area near the eastern town of Pabrade. We’re here to see more than 2,200 military personnel and 300 military vehicles that have gathered for an annual exercise of Nato allies known as Strong Griffin. There may be international hardware on display and troops from Poland, the US and Portugal but Lithuania is clearly leading the show of strength.

The Baltic nation wouldn’t be able to do it without its conscripts – an increasingly important element within armed forces throughout Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. High defence spending and the draft are back, a policy shift that has been vindicated by an increasingly perilous global geopolitical outlook, including ongoing unrest in the Middle East. Global military spending topped €2.06trn in 2022, the highest figure on record. Much of the rise in spending was led by Europe – a trend that looks set to continue. Sweden has expanded conscription to civilian emergency services; Denmark is weighing extending it to women; and Latvia brought back compulsory male military service from the start of this year. Meanwhile, countries from Germany to the UK and France (see box) are having intense discussions within their defence ministries about whether to follow suit.

Battle lines
During the annual Strong Griffin exercise, soldiers acting as opposing forces (look out for red tape on vehicles and uniforms) conduct infantry and armoured offensive operations to test Lithuania’s Griffin Brigade’s readiness.

But Lithuania has been a European trailblazer. It introduced a nine-month conscription for several thousand randomly selected Lithuanian men every year (the age range is currently 18 to 23) in 2015 in the wake of Russia’s smash-and-grab annexation of Crimea. Today the Strong Griffin exercise is taking place amid biting winds that cut across open fields. Two thirds of the soldiers from the Duke Margiris battalion taking part are conscripts; half of the Kestutis battalion’s 400 soldiers have also been drafted. “The main purpose is to prepare the reserves,” says Margiris battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mindaugas Specius, who sounds hoarse after barking orders all day. As well as having a large reservist base with basic military training, conscription is also a way of boosting active soldier numbers that had previously been flagging. “It’s a very good link between the armed forces and society, and a way to show [combat] readiness.”

Combat preparedness is vital as the threat – perceived or real, depending on your point of view – from Russia and its allies looms large. “Our neighbours are unpredictable and unstable so we need to check our readiness every day,” says Specius. “The situation dictates that this type of exercise must be conducted at every possible opportunity.” Having untangled itself from its Soviet past and turned decidedly towards Europe, Lithuania feels a certain amount of vulnerability due to its geographical position. Indeed, Alexander Lanoszka, defence analyst and associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, calls the Baltic state “a small country that sits uncomfortably between Kaliningrad and Belarus” – a reference to the fact that it borders a Russian enclave to the west and what is effectively a Putin proxy state to the east. At one point, along the Suwalki Gap border that Lithuania shares with Poland, these hostile territories are separated by just 65km.

But if Lithuania’s conscripts are anything to go by, no one seems to believe that the country is in any real danger. At the Zukauskas training area, fresh-faced boys in brown-and-green fatigues clutch Heckler & Koch g36 rifles as they perform drills across fields, communicating with central command via Harris Galcon III RF-7800V radio stations. The troops have strips of blue tape attached to their uniforms to show that, in this simulation of a hostile environment, they are friendly forces. Wandering over to talk to Monocle is 24-year-old Vilius Monkunas, who has a confident air and a firm handshake. He is broadly in favour of conscription and says that it provided him with a break from office life in Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas. He might earn less here but with free board and food, he can save. He also thinks that it’s good to defend his country, though he doesn’t believe that the borders are in danger of being compromised. “I don’t feel any kind of threat, to be honest,” he says. “We are in Nato and we have a lot of allies. I’m not scared personally; neither is my family nor anyone around me.” It’s an opinion shared by 22-year-old Gvidas Daukintis, whose accent has an English twang – he moved to Maidenhead with his family six years ago. He says that Vilnius kept “bugging” him about conscription and he even had to pay a small fine for an initial no-show. “I feel safer than ever,” he says, rifle slung over his shoulder. But then he adds something that gets to the core of Lithuania’s conscription policy. “I don’t feel like anything is going to happen but we have to be ready for the unthinkable.”

Lithuania hasn’t shirked away from talking about the potential threat posed by Russia and other bad actors who might be inspired by its bravado in Ukraine. Its foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has long been vocal about strengthening what he calls “the eastern flank” of the two key blocs to which Lithuania belongs: Nato and the EU. Alongside unwavering support for Ukraine, the country has repeatedly called on Nato allies to increase their presence in the Baltic states. Germany has listened and has committed to the permanent stationing of some 4,800 soldiers inside Lithuania, who it expects to be combat-ready by 2027.

Highlighting Lithuania’s strategic position has its advantages if you are used to being overlooked as a country, according to Mark Galeotti, the UK-based executive director of the Russia-focused Mayak Intelligence think-tank. “All of a sudden, countries such as Lithuania can present themselves as being ready and active,” he tells Monocle. “In a way, that actually makes them more important.” Galeotti also points to the example of Poland, which has upped its status as a central European defence powerhouse by exploring a €20bn arms deal with South Korea.

Show of strength
Some 2,200 soldiers and 300 vehicles are involved in the exercise: US Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; Lithuanian M113 armoured personnel carriers and ATV Humvees; and Polish Rosomak armoured vehicles.

Lithuania’s armed forces are never going to match those of Germany, France or even Poland. But that’s missing the point, according to Zilvinas Tomkus, vice-minister of national defence. “Our strength is how we involve society,” he says, referring to how Lithuania builds resilience. “And this is an important thing to know.” He’s not the first Lithuanian official to talk about bridging the armed forces to civilians divide through conscription. And he’s not the first to point to a 2023 poll showing that 86 per cent of Lithuanians are in favour of the military profession, up by 7 per cent from the previous year. Indeed, the Ukrainian experience has shown what having widespread domestic support can mean on the battlefield, even in the face of a larger adversary.

Still, there’s little doubt that conscript life is a big change from the creature comforts of home. Over in Zukauskas, soldiers are arriving back at their muddy temporary home, known in military speak as an assembly area, after the day’s exercises. They wash in blocks of portable-cabin showers and drop off their kits at the large army-green tents in which they’ll sleep on rudimentary folding beds. In an outdoor kitchen, protected from the rain by a tarpaulin, army chefs are heating up vegetable soup for dinner while Kiss’s I Was Made for Lovin’ You drifts from a stereo. Days typically start at 06.00 with lights out at 22.00. It’s not exactly the big nights out and weekend lie-ins that many 20-somethings are used to. “What’s the hardest thing here?” asks Vilius Monkunas, the junior private with that firm handshake. “Probably the rules; to stand in a crowd and for it to be very strict. It’s hard for me as I’m kind of a free soul.”

Despite the rigidity of their new regime, most of the conscripts have positive things to say about the time spent away from screens, learning skills that they most likely wouldn’t have acquired otherwise. No one we spoke to knew how to operate a gun previously. Many now know how to successfully navigate their way back to base from the middle of nowhere in the dead of night using only a map, a compass and a set of co-ordinates. Some, such as 19-year-old Ainaras Paukstis, are even contemplating becoming a professional soldier, though he’s yet to be fully convinced. For others, it has been an opportunity to test mental and physical reserves. “It’s changed me psychologically,” says Daukintis, the conscript with the English twang. “When you’re running or doing exercises, you can’t stop because the leaders are asking you to do it. You just keep pressing on and realise that you can do it – it’s amazing.”

Of course, contemporary warfare needs more than brute force and land troops. “That’s why we need riflemen but also the guy who can operate a drone or use artificial intelligence as a tool to defend and fight against aggression,” says defence vice-minister Tomkus. Indeed, hybrid warfare is increasingly on policymakers’ lips, a term used to refer to non-conventional acts of hostility. For Lithuania, this has meant irregular flows of Middle Eastern and African migrants crossing from Russia-allied Belarus, a phenomenon that peaked in 2021 and has subsequently affected Latvia and Poland. Since the end of last year, it has been the turn of Finland to experience an influx of migrants seemingly funnelled there by Moscow; it responded by closing its border with Russia.

Serve and protect
Male draftees are called from among Lithuania’s 18 to 23 year olds, whereas all 18 to 38 year olds – male and female – in the country are invited to enlist on a voluntary basis. Both cohorts complete the same nine-month service.

Clearly the rumble of armoured vehicles and camouflage paint on soldiers’ faces during the Strong Griffin exercise is more than a stunt. Military spending has risen to 2.75 per cent of GDP this year (up from just 0.89 per cent a decade ago) and there has been a doubling down on compulsory military service, even if many of the draftees we speak to say that they think the decision to join should remain voluntary. Lithuania’s ambassador to Nato, Deividas Matulionis, tells Monocle that although it hasn’t happened yet, “it seems that the political will is there” for Lithuania to move from a partial to a general conscription model in the future. In fact, its parliament’s lower house has already passed a bill that will move things in that direction. At the end of last year, it provisionally approved lowering the conscription age range from 18 to 21, instead of 18 to 23. More importantly, the bill also aims to reduce the number of exemptions that stop people from joining, including for students. It will be put to a subsequent vote this spring and, if everything goes to plan, Lithuania could be drafting some 5,000 soldiers a year by 2027, up from the current maximum of 3,800.

Officials here are keen to underline that Russia should never be underestimated. They draw on the examples of the war with Georgia in 2008 and the Ukraine invasions of 2014 and 2022, which all largely took the West by surprise. It’s an opinion that battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Specius shares, shrugging off the overconfidence of his young conscripts. “Young people might judge the situation differently,” he says. “But when you have to make difficult decisions, you need to understand the situation from all sides. We need to be ready when the moment comes.”

Draft plans: Europe’s conscription debate
So far, the return of conscription in Europe has largely been limited to Nordic and Baltic nations that feel a deeper threat from Russia due to their proximity. But there are signs that countries such as France, Germany and the UK are rethinking military service, a policy that largely fell out of favour in the aftermath of the Cold War. Former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that he was in favour of conscription as a means to build the reserves, inspired by the Swedish and Finnish models. Grant Schapps, his successor, has been open about the problems facing the army and the need to recruit more people (conscription being an obvious way to do it, even if the British public remain unconvinced). In France, MPs last year approved the largest military spending hike in half a century and Emmanuel Macron is known to be an admirer of military service. His introduction of a four-week voluntary service for teenagers has had a lukewarm reception but he’s still pushing to make it compulsory. As for Germany, its armed forces – the Bundeswehr – are also facing a drop in recruitment. Its 181,383 soldiers are short of the target of 203,000 that Europe’s largest economy wants to achieve by 2031. Conscription, abolished in Germany in 2011, could be a way to solve the problem.

Interview: Kim Bora, award-winning director of ‘House of Hummingbird’

It took South Korean director Kim Bora years to muster the courage to call herself a filmmaker. “I was always a bit embarrassed about loving films so much,” she says from her living room in Seoul. “In a [conservative] society like this, you’re always thinking about how things might not work out.”

Kim, one of the most acclaimed young directors from South Korea, is best known for her 2018 feature debut, House of Hummingbird, which won 59 prizes around the world, including at Tribeca and the Berlin International Film Festival. But success, she says, didn’t come easy. “I’m not this genius who is super certain of her opinions,” says 42-year-old Kim. “I just work really hard. Throughout my twenties I doubted whether film was the right path for me. Even in my thirties, when I finished House of Hummingbird, I thought, ‘This is too hard. I’ll quit after this one.'” What she didn’t know at the time was that the film would introduce her work to global audiences, who were already familiar with the oeuvre of male South Korean directors such as Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook.

House of Hummingbird follows Eunhee, a 14-year-old girl, as she confronts complex questions about her identity, love, sexuality, social repression and more. This all takes place in the newly democratised South Korea of 1994 – the same year a major bridge in Seoul collapsed due to faulty construction. The tragedy is still seen as a symbol of rushed modernity.

Kim was a similar age to the protagonist when the Seongsu bridge fell. Her school years were not particularly happy ones. Kim, who sees herself as a feminist, recalls frequently feeling oppressed in the cookie-cutter South Korean education system. At the Kaywon High School of Arts, where she first studied film, she once had to watch a female student, who was elected as class president, be pressured by her teacher to give up her position to a male pupil – unfortunately not an uncommon tale in South Korea at the time.

“I was livid,” she says. “When I entered my twenties, I began to sublimate this rage into film.” At Dongguk University, she connected with feminist communities and tried to defy widespread prejudice against female directors. But it was during her master’s programme at Columbia University in New York that Kim began to feel nurtured as a filmmaker. “I sometimes wonder whether I’d have realised that it is possible for a woman to make films had I not gone to that school,” she says. “In South Korea, when I wrote a script with a lesbian character, I was questioned why. At Columbia, I was asked about character development, the narrative arc.”

Today, South Korea is a dynamic battleground for feminist movements. But hurdles still remain, including in the country’s film industry, where female directors only contributed to 11.5 per cent of theatrical releases from 2009 to 2018. Even so, Kim is undeterred. She is working on Spectrum, a big budget, sci-fi film based on Kim Cho-yeop’s short story. She is determined to bring gender sensitivity to the film and has faith in her voice. “In my twenties, I approached filmmaking a bit like a child, wanting to express and prove myself,” she says. “Now I want to be a master.”

How do America’s first responders train for the worst natural – or manmade – disasters?

On an Alabama highway, a cargo truck carrying pesticide has stalled while crossing a railway track. A few moments later, it is struck by a freight train transporting an unknown chemical contaminant, which begins to leak. Any number of people could have been exposed. Nearby, at a small hospital in the town of Anniston, a “decontamination line” has been set up in a car park. When Monocle arrives, the scene is a flurry of ambulances; workers in Tyvek biohazard suits are cutting away the clothing worn by victims, who then progress through a long tent where any remaining contaminants are scrubbed away. Instructions are being shouted as more ambulances pull in. A man sits shivering in a white robe, a smudge of blood on his face.

For all the drama and intensity, this is not a real-world emergency but a high-fidelity simulation of what is rather coldly called a “mass casualty incident”. This hospital no longer treats actual patients: the “victims” are local actors or, in some cases, medical mannequins; the people in charge are instructors. This whole exercise, the culmination of a week’s training of emergency personnel from across the US, is happening on the grounds of the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), a 50-hectare complex run by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) on the site of the former Fort McClellan, a nearly century-old military complex that closed in 1999. 

Since 1998, notes Kent Latimer, Fema’s director of training delivery, the complex has instructed more than 1.3 million firefighters, police, doctors and nurses in how to act in emergencies ranging from biological-weapon attacks and hurricanes to active shooter incidents. The centre’s unofficial motto is “training the best for the worst”, says Latimer. Most of the instruction takes place in specially designed simulation environments. The former army hospital is now the country’s only facility dedicated solely to training healthcare professionals in disaster preparedness and response. A few metres away, a cylindrical railway tanker sits next to some parked cars. “That’s a simulation of a 4-metre railcar,” says Latimer, with “domes” housing different chemicals. The car was built by Advanced Entertainment Technologies, a Californian company that specialises in theme park attractions and film sets, with a sideline in hazmat training props. Nearby, there’s another car, which can be tipped on its side. In the distance, what sounds like a high-school sports fixture is in progress. “For our public-safety training, we play loud crowd sounds to simulate what it would be like working in a crowded environment,” says Latimer.

Throughout the year, the CDP will run hundreds of these exercises – and with good reason. In 2022, for example, there were more than 1,000 train derailments in the US. In the most notorious case, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in Palestine, Ohio, a year ago and residents are still reporting lingering health issues. The city halls of Chicago and Milwaukee, which host, respectively, the Democratic and Republican national conventions later this year, have sent emergency responders here for training in how to accommodate large and potentially hostile crowds. In 2017 there were so many natural disasters in the US – hurricanes in the southeast, wildfires in the west, flooding in the Midwest – that the CDP had to suspend training and send its workforce to help in real disaster zones. “So many people have things on their transcripts [school records] and yet, when they get out in the field, can they execute?” says Tony Russell, who helped oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now leads the CDP. He draws on his experience in the Marine Corps. “In the military, we would train under ‘live fire’ conditions,” he says. “So you could hear, feel and smell when someone was firing at you.” He wants the same for the CDP. “You can read it in a book but how does someone react to being really hot or cold, or being stressed out? Until you feel those things, you don’t know – and that is going to affect whether you can actually perform a task.”

One of the most striking examples of the CDP’s realism is at its Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological Training Facility (or “Cobra”). A red-brick building with a soaring central atrium, it looks like a mid-century church that has been fenced off by intimidating coils of razor wire. Formerly the site of the US Army’s Chemical Corps Training School, it is the only place in the country where emergency responders can go for “live agent” training – meaning that they will be exposed to actual variants of nerve agents such as sarin, which was used in the deadly 1995 terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, and VX, a lethal compound derived from pesticide research. “They are weapons-grade,” says Cobra operations manager James Johnstone. “They will kill you.” 

Nerve agents are so called for their effect on the nervous system. “They will cause convulsions and secretions, and you’ll lose your bladder,” says Johnstone. The facility can also expose participants to biological agents such as anthrax or ricin; there are no known antidotes for these so the CDP uses attenuated, non-lethal versions of them. “We haven’t had a nerve agent down here in seven to 10 days,” says Johnstone, somewhat reassuringly, as we enter the facility. A sophisticated “negative pressure” air-handling system quickly sucks the contamination out of the various bays and through a set of charcoal and Hepa filters. “This is the cleanest air in Alabama,” he says with a smile. Why incur the added expense, and risk to human life, by using actual nerve agents? “We had one responder who came in, he was a 30-year firefighter, he’s been in all kinds of events,” says Johnstone. “As we were getting ready to go into the hot area, he says, ‘I’m not going to do it.'” By adhering to strict realism, the centre hopes to prompt realistic responses. “Practise like you fight,” says Johnstone.

Studies conducted by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, adds fema’s Latimer, have found that training in actual contaminated environments is superior to artificial settings. He gives an example of a responder wearing a claustrophobic airtight ensemble on a hot day. “When the going gets tough and it’s all hot and sweaty and you’re wearing a mask and you just need a little breath of fresh air…” he says. “What do you think a first responder’s going to do if they’re training in a simulated environment?” He feigns lifting a mask off his face. “You don’t take it seriously because you know it’s a simulation.”

The CDP has spent several million dollars to upgrade the army’s facility from generic “training bays” to a simulated urban environment, a sort of mash-up of Nashville’s bustling Second Avenue (site of a 2020 bombing) and the New York subway. A warren of rooms and hallways, overseen by a control room, have been fitted with vinyl depicting environments ranging from a subway platform (complete with newspaper box and rubber rat) to a bar called Lucky’s. Before responders, clad in Grade A PPE (personal protective equipment), are allowed into the facility, they are exposed to a small dose of isoamyl acetate, or banana oil. “It’s very detectable when you smell it and it’s familiar,” says Johnstone. If participants smell banana, it means that their mask is not working. But it could also mean something else,” he says. “Somebody says, ‘I smell banana oil’, and they’re not smelling banana oil. They just don’t want to go in.” But even this psychological component has value here. “We would rather tap them out here than in the real world,” says Johnstone.

Back at the Anniston hospital, an actor named Ezra Gilreath is getting ready for his star turn. According to today’s script, he is a farmer named Cole Pollard who has lost his legs after becoming entangled in a piece of agricultural equipment. Gilreath, sporting sideburns and a pink shirt, sits on a gurney. His actual legs are tucked out of sight and what the world sees are two bleeding stumps. The crimson appendages are a highly realistic medical training device manufactured by Norwegian company Laerdal. Today’s exercises are all part of an Integrated Capstone Event, a chance for the assembled responders to put their training to work in an intense, multi-hour simulation of a regional hospital facing a sudden influx of patients. In addition to the patients coming from the train derailment, the responders have to deal with the standard pressures of a hospital environment. “We’re a relatively small hospital and our emergency department only has 13 beds,” says Rick Bearden, the CDP’s exercise manager. “On a normal day, in any town in America, those 13 beds will be full.” During a sudden “no-notice event”, the staff must scramble to reallocate scarce resources. To keep things interesting, CDP managers will throw a few curve balls. “This is like the script of a play,” says Bearden, pointing to a computer spreadsheet. Known as the Master Scenario Event List, it contains some 200 events, featuring everything from power outages to cardiac arrests.

One of these events calls for a patient with an emergency double amputation to suddenly appear at the already stretched hospital. Gilreath, the fictional farmer, is one of several dozen live actors the CDP will use. Some lie on stretchers, others shuffle through the “decon[tamination] line” wearing T-shirts reading “I’m naked” so that responders can treat them appropriately. The blood smeared on actors comes from a plastic jug of Ben Nye stage blood; the flavour is “zesty mint, in case they need to put it in their mouths”, says Katelyn Deerman, a training manager at the CDP. If today’s event unfolds like a film, the mannequin ward is the special-effects department. There’s a bottle of Hershey’s syrup (used to simulate diarrhoea), “vomit” (Pond’s cold cream and oats) and a range of latex wounds – everything from gunshot lesions to boils and blisters.

As the morning unfolds, the heart of the action is the hospital’s command centre. Rob Carter, a physician and instructor, says that the administrators are managing the crisis in real time, with everything acted out to the letter. “The emergency department is asking for blood products,” he says. “That doesn’t just happen with the flip of a light switch. We make them call the blood bank.” Faithful to one of the script’s plot points, the hospital’s internal communications are down. “So we have to run down to radiology?” a nurse asks. Carter expresses slight concern over the team’s performance. “The tone of the room is loud, it seems a little disorganised,” he says. The reason, he suspects, is that the person in charge is “getting in the weeds”. Rather than prioritising the big decisions, “they’re trying to fix everything”.

Back in the mannequin ward, Gilreath is ready to be wheeled to the emergency department. The staff cover their ears. “Ezra is the best screamer,” says Deerman. Suddenly, it’s go time. Gilreath unleashes a series of Oscar-worthy cries of “My legs!” as he is wheeled into the glaring light of the emergency ward. A team of nurses surrounds him, the doctor introduces herself. “You can come with me, ma’am,” a nurse says to the mother. “No,” she says repeatedly, her face a knot of anguish and concern. “I’m not leaving him.” His vitals are checked, tourniquets applied. “We got fluids?” someone asks. “Let’s get him up to the operating room.” The patient is whisked out, trailing blood on the gleaming floor. The room goes quiet. 

At some point in the next few weeks there will be a new crisis – a hurricane or an earthquake – and a new cast of characters. Simulating these sorts of emergencies helps to resolve a real-world dilemma. Events like these don’t happen so frequently that emergency responders can learn on the job but they are common enough that someday these responders will get the call – and it won’t be a drill.

The design agenda: A new archive space opens at the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity

architecture –– norway
Cabin essence

Porsgrunn-based studio Feste Landscape Architecture has designed a series of cabins for the Norwegian county of Agder. Located in various landscapes across the region, the 25 identical structures cater to those who want to immerse themselves in nature. Each has floor-to-ceiling windows, a fireplace & a built-in library. In 2021, Agder County Council commissioned Feste to create homely cabins that could be installed in remote locations. It was a priority of the project’s lead designers, David Fjågesund and Sigurd Aanby, that the natural environment would not be compromised.

Their solution was to develop a modular design that could be prefabricated elsewhere and then positioned by helicopter. “This eliminated the need to use heavy vehicles and machinery to [install the cabins], which could have caused a lot of damage,” says Fjågesund. The designers were also eager for the cabin experience to feel distinct at every location. “By carefully selecting the plots and making considered interventions in the landscape, we gave each cabin its own unique quality,” he says. The result is a model for rolling out modular construction in a way that’s sensitive to nature and doesn’t feel repetitive.
feste.no

On Design
nic monisse on…
The Curse

There are very few series about architects and designers doing good. Which is why The Curse, from US network Showtime and starring Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder, is so exciting. It follows a couple (Stone and Fielder) and their efforts building eco-conscious housing in the small community of Española, New Mexico. Their distinctive, mirror-clad homes are airtight with robust insulation, enhanced by the selection of sustainable appliances and white goods for a top energy-efficiency rating.

The design-minded duo almost immediately hit speed bumps when tenants move in: one throws out a brand-new induction cooktop and puts a gas one in its place; another requests the installation of an air-conditioner. Some simply complain that they don’t want a toilet that doubles as a washbasin, no matter how much water it might save. In short, no matter how well intentioned, the ambition of the show’s designer duo is too radical for their “everyday” clients. It’s a reminder that while profound change is necessary to combat environmental challenges, it can only be considered progress if people actually stick to the plan.

The show seems to suggest that instead of clean and green renovation projects that completely tip on its head a resident’s understanding of how a home operates or should look, making small tweaks, such as switching out single-pane windows for insulated options or installing discreet solar panels on a roof, should be considered. These elements don’t infringe on quality of life and are much more likely to receive uptake, making them a more effective way to influence change. This could also pave the way for bigger shifts.

This slower, gentle approach is surely better than a quick and radical one that is ultimately abandoned. The only flaw, I can see, is that this wouldn’t make for exciting television.

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gallery –– mexico
Outer limits

Sitting on the Oaxacan coastline in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, Meridiano is an exhibition space that challenges the conventional art-gallery model. “We wanted artists to have a space that reacts directly to the natural environment,” says Nicholas Olney, who co-founded Meridiano with Boris Vervoordt in February 2023. “That’s why there’s no ceiling, allowing an openness to its sounds, the weather, the sun, the moon and the stars.”

The gallery buildings, which were designed by architects Axel Vervoordt and Tatsuro Miki, are accessed via a secluded pathway, immediately immersing visitors in the surrounding natural environment. The two main rooms – a square, open-air space and a rectangular area with an oculus opening in its ceiling – act as a kind of sundial.

“With overhead views of the changing sky, the open spaces welcome the outside in and add layers to the sensory experience,” says Olney. “The architecture invites visitors to contemplate the artwork through the shifting environmental conditions. There’s an ever-evolving interplay of light and shadow.”

It’s an experience that is enhanced by the magnetism of the Pacific coastline. “There’s this feeling of being on the edge of the Earth here,” he says. “And the edge is where interesting things happen. It’s where interactions occur and things are most fertile, including the thoughts and ideas of the artists. That’s why Meridiano is unlike any other place in the world to show art.”
meridiano.art

furniture –– usa
Play time

Think that if you’ve seen one Eames armchair, you’ve seen them all? Think again. A new archive space in Richmond, California, reveals just how prolific industrial designers Ray and Charles Eames were, bringing together everything from their earliest prototypes to the ephemera that they collected over the course of their careers.

While there’s no shortage of ottomans or the couple’s signature moulded plastic seats at the Eames Archives, located in the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, the curators have taken an idiosyncratic, playful approach to celebrating their design philosophy. Here, you’ll find not only the duo’s iconic work and prototypes but also items such as toys and stationery that they gathered from around the world.

“We call it a working collection because Charles and Ray kept things even when they were broken, so that they could figure out how to make them better the next time,” says Llisa Demetrios, the couple’s youngest granddaughter and the Eames Institute’s chief curator. Demetrios and the collections team have built the inaugural show from the 40,000 objects in the family’s collection. It’s a tribute to the world that Ray and Charles lived in, where thinking and designing happened through making, with surprisingly few sketches or drawings included.

Among the objects that fill the vitrines are notes on the silver-paper linings that Ray liked to pluck from cigarette cartons, early paintings by Charles and Ray, and correspondence between the couple and their contemporaries. Drawers overflow with paper cutouts of people, used for making design maquettes by hand. Look under a stool and you’ll find a label designating who in the Eames office this perch was reserved for.

Apart from the meticulously preserved house where the designers lived in Los Angeles, there had never been a space dedicated to their collection until now. According to the Eames Institute, the couple’s interest in finding materials that don’t cost the Earth and creating products that last is particularly relevant now. “We hope that this is an organisation that does more than preserve the past,” says its president and ceo, John Cary. “It could offer a road map to the future.”
eamesinstitute.org

urbanism –– amsterdam
Vicious cycles

Grace Charlton on the urban blight of the Dutch capital’s two-wheeled road warriors.

Set on a network of waterways, Amsterdam has a compact city centre: many of its distinctive Dutch classicist buildings are crammed between canals. Given this limited space, the bike has become the logical mode of transport for traversing the city. It became dominant in the 1970s partly as a result of concern over traffic-related deaths; the 1973 oil crisis also increased anti-car sentiment. In the years since, Amsterdam has been celebrated for its urban design, revered as the world’s capital of cycling and held up as a prime example of a metropolis that prioritises people-friendly transport.

Today, however, the Dutch capital is a tangled jungle of bike frames piled on top of each other, many of which can be found at the bottom of the canals or abandoned on bridges. On a recent city break, I found its central neighbourhoods almost impossible to navigate. Waiting for my flight home at Schiphol airport, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that I no longer had to dodge a peloton of two-wheeled racers every time I wanted to cross the street. Cyclists rule Amsterdam’s roads, with bike lanes taking up as much space as those for cars. Meanwhile, pedestrians are squeezed onto narrow footpaths.

Many bike riders seem proud of their utter disregard of traffic lights, people walking or even common decency, often tailgating those in their path and never slowing down – parents with prams and the elderly, be warned. Over three days, I heard too many bike bells being rung passive-aggressively at people who were simply attempting to enjoy a stroll through the Negen Straatjes or Jordaan neighbourhoods.

It begs the question: in the same way that the city’s roads have been carved up to make way for bike lanes, should cyclists in the city now be forced to make more room for pedestrians? Or should cars be removed entirely for the benefit of those on two feet or two wheels? Either way, the current system is unsustainable. Perhaps the city’s central neighbourhoods could be improved by a little more pedestrianisation. At its best, a public space is just that: public, for all to share and use. Amsterdam could do with a reminder of that.

Compagnies républicaines de sécurité 8 – the mobile police unit countering urban violence

The French are no strangers to public protest. But even by their own rowdy standards, the past few years have been combustible. The damage that occurred during a week of rioting following the killing of a 17-year-old motorist by French police last summer led to an estimated bill of €1bn. This came after months of large-scale and sometimes violent protests against a rise in the retirement age. The police came in for criticism both for their heavy-handedness and their inability to contain the disorder.

Formed as a response to such events, the Compagnies républicaines de sécurité 8 (CRS 8) is a highly mobile division of 200 riot police, intended to act as a rapid-intervention Swat team. Rather than simply lining up with their shields at the ready, the unit uses military-style tactics to outflank and surprise violent protesters, terrorists and gang members. CRS 8 candidates are hand-picked after a gruelling recruitment process that includes endurance and shooting tests, obstacle courses, written exams and an interview in front of a panel. In 2023 only 22 of 95 applicants were selected. Several quit in their first year, citing a demanding work schedule that includes eight days of 24-hour duty followed by six days of rest.

Charles de Gaulle created the CRS in December 1944. Eight decades later, it has spawned an elite unit intended to combat threats such as terrorism, organised crime and public disorder. The group is led by Commander Olivier Desmaisons, a former diplomatic-security expert, and headquartered in a 17th-century castle near Paris.

The group was formed with one eye on this year’s Olympic Games in Paris. French police and political leaders want to project an image of security as millions descend on the capital in July and August. But critics of the government’s approach perceive it as a symptom of France’s slide into a police state. The CRS 8’s crowd-control work will be aided by a controversial video system, which uses an algorithm that has been designed to spot suspicious objects or behaviour, such as unsupervised luggage and dangerous crowd movements that could lead to stampedes.

Some are concerned that the new equipment will lead to wrongful arrests. But with an already tense domestic situation, heightened by fresh volatility in the Middle East, the government claims that it needs every tool that it can get. All will be hoping that the officers of this new division manage to keep their truncheons in their holsters this summer.

The CRS 8 carry at least 23kg of weapons and equipment at all times, to which is sometimes added an 18kg category-four ballistic riot shield for mass shootings. That’s a lot of gear. Here’s what else they pack.

1.
Heavy-duty polycarbonate ‘bubble’ shield
Smaller, outward-facing concave riot shields are more mobile than traditional riot shields, and so they’re easier to use in offensive operations.

2.
Tetrapol communications system
Tetrapol radio systems are popular with first responders and emergency services as they offer highly secure communication. They deliver voice and data from local to large networks and feature end-to-end encryption on group calls and emergency communications.

3.
Penn Arms PGL 65 40mm multi-shot grenade launcher
This launcher works with all 40mm grenades, including Flash-Ball rounds, but is only used by the CRS 8 for tear gas. It can fire up to six rounds in four seconds over a distance of 150 metres.

4.
GM2L tear gas and stun grenade
This grenade produces both a powerful detonation of about 160 decibels and a cloud of incapacitating CS gas. It does not contain explosives (it is a pyrotechnic device) and has no blast effect, unlike the GLI-F4 and F-1 models it has replaced, both of which have caused mutilations and which some critics consider a threat to life.

5.
Heckler & Koch G36K assault rifle
The CRS 8 carry the latest configuration of this rifle, which features length and height-adjustable stocks and aluminium alloy handguards. It is effectively a military weapon adopted by French police after the 2015 terrorist attacks to provide more firepower to first responders.

6.
Sig Sauer SP2022 9mm handgun
The SP2022, popular with law enforcement worldwide, features an all-polymer frame and an integrated accessory rail. It has a 9.9cm carbon-steel barrel, weighs about 900g and has a 15-round 9mm Luger magazine.

7.
Protective helmet
Like most police helmets, this features a hard shell with reinforced padding, a chinstrap and hinge-up polycarbonate visor. Accessories include a built-in radio microphone and earpiece.

8.
Telescopic defence baton
The CRS 8 uses three types of baton: a standard straight baton, a tonfa (side-handle baton) and a telescopic defence baton (TDB), like the one pictured. Straight batons and tonfas are made from durable rubber, plastics such as polypropylene or polycarbonate, or aluminium. TDB’s are usually made from high-grade steel.

The Monocle Property Survey 2024

Realdania
Copenhagen, Denmark

When outsiders attempt to analyse the remarkable quality of life that Denmark is known for, one often-overlooked factor is the role played by philanthropic foundations, a field in which the Danes could reasonably claim to lead the world. These fonde, whether family-owned or set up by companies, donate or invest more than DKK20bn (€2.9bn) a year to causes and projects at home and abroad. The foundation of Danish multi­national pharmaceutical company Novo Nordiskis the world’s largest charitable fund, while Maersk’s, Carlsberg’s and Lego’s funds are similarly gargantuan. But in terms of contributions to the built environment, Realdania is the global leader.

“We don’t talk about ‘investments’,” CEO Jesper Nygård tells Monocle. “Our ‘return’ is to make a better society. It is very important that we support issues that cannot be solved just by government or local authorities, or the private sector, or civil society alone.”

Realdania has supported 4,750 building projects since it was established more than 20 years ago, ranging from community centres to museums, cultural hubs, parks, bridges and major urban transformation projects. “We are the enzyme that combines public and private sectors,” says Nygård. “Politicians are under increasing pressure to spend less tax money and the private sector has to have more focus on making a shorter-term return. Our role is to take risks and look longer term, even a generation ahead.”

Realdania’s roots go back to the first credit unions of the 18th century but in 2000 it divested of its banking and mortgage activities to focus on charitable development work. Today it describes itself as a “self-endowed philanthropic association” with a total equity of DKK25bn (€3.35bn). On average, it spends DKK1bn (€134m) of returns from its investments on philanthropic projects in the built environment across the country every year. Some of those projects will themselves bring revenue or a complete return on investment but most are purely philanthropic.

If you can think of a recent urban landmark in Denmark, the chances are that Realdania funded it, whether it’s Olafur Eliasson’s “Your Rainbow Panorama” on the roof of Aarhus’s Aros art museum, Norman Foster’s elephant house at Copenhagen Zoo or the capital’s innovative urban park, Superkilen, by Bjarke Ingels Group. Among its boldest projects is Blox, a stack of blocks dominating Copenhagen’s Inner Harbour.

“Blox was created to be not only a home for the Danish Architecture Center [DAC] but also a place that would welcome all those who were in the business of architecture, design, engineering and development,” says DAC’s CEO, Kent Martinussen, who was involved in the project from the very start with architect Rem Koolhaas of Dutch studio OMA. “The Danish parliament was not ready to invest money in a new building but Realdania saw this as a way for it to engage with the public on issues such as sustainability, urbanisation and what architecture can do to shape society. And because it is a philanthropic association that will, in effect, be here forever, it can allow itself to think 50 years ahead when it comes to making an investment.”

Realdania is also behind the transformation of the centre of Odense, Denmark’s third city, matching the local authority’s budget of DKK255m (€34m) in a decade-long project completed in 2021. Where once Odense’s medieval city centre was rudely bisected by a four-lane highway, now a tram glides through a green pedestrian zone with new housing and shops, and the stunning new Kengo Kuma-designed Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

“It’s a great example of how architecture can improve quality of life,” Realdania’s director of philanthropy, Nina Kovsted Helk, tells Monocle from Los Angeles, where she is consulting with US foundations. “At the beginning in Odense, people were criticising the project at public meetings because they didn’t want years of construction to take over their streets. Now the locals love it. As the mayor has said, ‘People used to come to Odense to see how not to design a city. Now they come to learn how to.'” Ironically, given the mayor’s enthusiasm, one of the lessons that Helk took from Odense’s transformation was to keep politicians away from the details. “It was important that those decisions were taken by experts – the architects, anthropologists and engineers. The politicians were strategically bold enough to let us do that.”

Realdania’s director of philanthropy, Nina Kovsted Helk

On a smaller scale is Demokrati Garage, a new event and project space in Copenhagen’s Nordvest neighbourhood, in which Realdania was a partner. “We think of ourselves as like a clubhouse for democracy, engaging this neighbourhood, which is very diverse and young,” project partner Johan Galster tells Monocle. “Realdania made sure that we found a balance, creating something not just for political nerds but for the whole community. I think that we inspired it in terms of how to engage with the grass roots. The old top-down way is dead.”

Anyone who owns property in Denmark can join Realdania for free and have a say in how the fund is run. Currently, about 185,000 Danes have joined. “We love it when we drop a stone in the water and see the rings spread,” says Nygård. “We call it ‘catalytic philanthropy’. That’s why we feel obliged to share our knowledge globally. In Denmark, we demonstrate that together, with our knowledge and experience, we can improve the quality of life for everyone through bricks, stones and construction.”

Monocle comment
When you can think about the long term and consider what will happen in 50 years’ time, you will focus on quality, commitment to place, raising the bar, aware that the next generation will judge the wisdom of your decisions.

Market analysis: Paris
French blues

“Having a pied-à-terre in Paris is considered a trophy asset for a collector of properties,” says Susie Hollands, CEO of bespoke real-estate agency Vingt. The concentration of international business and effective transport links with the rest of Europe has long made the French capital an appealing place to settle, especially for those with an active interest in the Parisian food, art and fashion scenes. “It’s never really been about the return on investment.”

Today, the city is in flux. “Paris has been a different city since the pandemic,” says Hollands. An exodus of young Parisians, tired of the endless influx of tourists, means the French capital is experiencing a higher level of foreign investment than ever. “There isn’t one nationality dominating the market,” she adds. “Paris has always attracted high numbers of Americans but we’re seeing a resurgence of Middle Eastern and Singaporean buyers.”

After enjoying a period of buoyancy thanks to low interest rates and a sharp increase in buying, Paris’s property market began to plummet in 2022. In December property prices hit a low point, valued at about €11,000 per square metre – a figure that looks set to fall below €10,000 in 2024. Interest rates have quadrupled in 18 months, plus a tightening of criteria for bank loans has prompted Parisians to hold off from buying. “The process for getting a mortgage in France is difficult because they have a very different attitude to debt compared with the US and UK,” says Hollands. “It’s very hard to get on Paris’s property ladder.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. With the 2024 Olympic Games on the horizon, it’s likely that new housing stock will become available as homeowners who are holding out until the event start to sell. One neighbourhood, the northeastern department of Seine-Saint-Denis, has seen an increase of 18 per cent in its property prices year on year. Though the industrial suburb has always been something of a sporting hotspot (it’s where the Stade de France sits), the construction of the Aquatics Centre and Athletes’ Village here will give the commune – and the suburbs in general – an increasingly desirable quality of life, broadening real estate investment appeal in the wider Île‑de-France region.

The Hollywood Sign Trust: The non-profit group that keeps the cultural landmark camera-ready

The Hollywood Sign Trust’s mission is to keep Los Angeles’s legendary letters looking their best. “One of the hardest messages to convey to people is that this is a restricted area,” says Jeff Zarrinnam, chairman of the trust.

The Hollywood sign is perhaps the most conspicuous yet least-accessible landmark in the world. It is monitored 24 hours a day by motion sensors, high-definition cameras and the Los Angeles Police Department, which keeps watch from a TV tower on the hilltop. The public is only allowed to view the letters from nearby trails, though some people still try to scramble up the hill to reach them.

After unlocking a gate at the summit of Mount Lee, Zarrinnam hands us a rope and we shimmy down the hillside to the more than 13-metre-high, corrugated-iron letters. A disembodied voice comes from a nearby loudspeaker. “This is the LAPD. You are hiking in a restricted area. You must leave, now.” “A misunderstanding,” says Zarrinnam, before a quick call is put in to reassure the cops. “But it shows that the system is working.”

The original sign was erected in 1923 to advertise a new residential community called Hollywoodland. The last part was removed when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce purchased the sign in 1949. “It went from being a real-estate billboard to a representation of the film industry,” says Zarrinnam.

The sign has always attracted drama, from the struggling actress who hurled herself from the “H” in 1932 to the vandals who draped it in fabric and changed it to read “Hollyweed” (twice). By the 1970s, however, the wooden structure had dilapidated and illustrious locals stepped in to raise money for the metal letters. In 2023, to celebrate the sign’s 100th anniversary, the trust partnered with a land surveyor to digitally map the letters so that they could be reproduced in case of damage. Dana Pesce, the newest trustee, heads up Netflix’s global real estate & strategic planning and can see the sign from her office. “It’s a reminder of our mission,” she says. “Hollywood is about inspiring the world.”

Jeff Zarrinnam
Chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust

Born in Hollywood, Zarrinnam is the owner of two hotels and a distillery. He spent almost 40 years as a member of Hollywood Chamber of Commerce before heading up the trust in 2019. For him the sign is a symbol of enduring power, esepcially after the 2023 Hollywood actors’ strikes. “This city is known for reinventing itself,” he says. “Hollywood will figure it out.” Here, he tells us about the trust’s volunteer team.

From left to right:

1.
Ed Tom
New trustee
“Was operations director for the Hollywood Bowl for 40 years. He has a wide range of expertise, including in traffic control.”

2.
Darnell Tyler
Trustee
“An NBC executive engaged with many communities nearby the sign.”

3.
Jerry Neuman
Trustee and treasurer
“A lawyer and our liaison with the Chamber of Commerce. We can ask him for legal advice without paying for it.”

4.
Brian Lane
Secretary
“Lives in Hollywoodland. As an architect, he has great knowledge of topography and seismology.”

5.
Dana Pesce
New trustee
“Joined the trust recently. We’ll call on her to help as we hope to create a visitors centre for the sign.”

6.
Marty Shelton
Vice-chairman
“A real estate broker and a great asset to the trust because he knows how this city works.”

The business agenda: A Jakarta-based fragrance label and the company driving Japan’s substitute-meat market

Fashion: Portugal
Cleaning up its act

The coronavirus pandemic saw activewear become a fashion staple and demand for casual sportswear continues to grow. Yet this sartorial shift poses environmental challenges. Petroleum-based materials such as polyester, nylon and Spandex are non-degradable and come with a chemical-heavy production process. That’s why brands are working on eco-friendly activewear. And with new EU regulations that would make them liable for their waste expected to be passed into law, the player with the winning formula would hold sway in an important market.

Clothius is Portugal’s biggest producer of seamless clothes, with a hi-tech factory in the northern town of Barcelos. Here circular looms deliver clothes that are almost store ready. “They come out with the tags and washing instructions printed on them,” says Jorge Vale, Clothius’s director. Since its founding in 2014, the business has seen its clientele change from sportswear brands to fashion labels with athleisure lines, such as Karl Lagerfeld and Calvin Klein. “Only about 15 per cent of what we make is for sport; the rest sits in this hybrid,” says Vale. While high-performance gear still relies on synthetic fabrics for optimal breathability and elasticity, athleisure offers leeway for experimenting with sustainable materials. “Twenty per cent of our yarns are recycled and we offer clients natural and regenerated materials, from Lyocell to bamboo fibres,” he says.

The push towards sustainability is felt across the Portuguese textile industry and businesses are betting that production innovations will give them a competitive edge over places such as Morocco and Turkey. In 2017, Valerius, Clothius’s holding company and the country’s leading textile group, invested €25m into its own recycling plant. It can now make 2,100 tonnes of recycled yarn a year from its own waste, overproduction and unsold stock. Considering that Portugal has to import many prime materials for textiles, investing in recycling plants makes a lot of sense.

“Our aim is to be a completely circular business,” says Rute Santos, head of business and product development at RDD Textiles, Valerius’s research and innovation hub. Along with its work in recyclables, the centre is researching fibres made from food waste and bio dyes made from bacteria. “There’s a long way to go in terms of making this a clean industry,” says Santos. “But Portugal is well positioned to offer solutions in Europe’s textile market.”

Grooming: Indonesia
Homegrown talent

The impetus for starting Oaken Lab, an Indonesian perfume brand, came from necessity. Co-founder Chris Kerrigan, wary of the effects of mass-market deodorants and aftershaves on his skin, began to experiment with making skincare products at home. He ended up taking an intensive perfume course and realised that he wanted to go further than kitchen-table R&D. He and his wife and business partner, Cynthia Wirjono, launched Oaken Lab in 2018. The duo co-founded the Goods Department, a concept store, and Brightspot Market, a boutique fashion festival that they still help to run every year.

Both of these businesses are in Jakarta and have succeeded by championing local brands with thoughtfully designed and high-quality products. Oaken Lab, which sells perfume, body and hair products and other grooming essentials, now has stockists in six countries. It emphasises its Indonesian roots through products such as Batavia Barber, a perfume named after a historic barbershop in Jakarta’s Old City. The local links are more than nominal: the fragrance comprises vetiver from Java and patchouli from Sumatra, and customers have responded enthusiastically to Oaken Lab’s handsomely packaged, sweet-smelling scents, balms, candles and accessories.

“We started small and we always listen to responses from the first people who adopted the brand,” says Wirjono. “It made us realise that we do have a place in the market and that it’s still very underserved.” Oaken Lab now supplies its products to restaurants, retailers and hotels. In 2023 it opened three bricks-and-mortar shops, one in Bali, one in Jakarta’s Indonesia Design District and a larger flagship, which opened in south Jakarta in October and delivers new and immersive experiences of the products. “We were waiting to find these perfect little spots,” Wirjono says of the time it took to open physical shops. “We don’t want to overexpand; we want every location to be meaningful.”

Podcasts: Austria
Talk of the town

Austria’s postal service has been undergoing modernisation for years but its first foray into the audio world in 2022 marked a new high. Aptly named Postcast and inspired by the country’s long tradition of radio drama, it explained the system’s intricate inner workings from the point of view of a parcel, voiced by a well-known Austrian public radio presenter, as it travelled from Vienna to the second city of Graz.

Though technically a corporate podcast, its innovative storytelling made it a hit in the roster of Oh Wow, Austria’s first dedicated podcast production house.

“It was a lot of fun to make but also quite challenging because it was actually more like a semi-fictional mini-series than a corporate story,” says Oh Wow’s founder Jeanne Drach, an Austro-French musician and entrepreneur who had lived in Algiers, Dakar and New York before settling in Vienna (she puts her languages to good use, hosting shows in English, German and French).

Oh Wow is partially funded by the Vienna Business Agency, whose generous schemes have powered a rise in new journalism and media initiatives in the city in recent years.

Drach started the company in 2019 when she recognised a gap in the podcast market, as did the City of Vienna. Oh Wow is partially funded by the Vienna Business Agency, whose generous schemes have powered a rise in new journalism and media initiatives in the city in recent years.

Another of Drach’s hallmarks is her emphasis on empowering women. All Oh Wow employees are women (the postal parcel spoke in a female voice too), while the company’s flagship show, Jeannes Welt, focuses on inspirational women in the Austrian arts, media and beyond, including musician Ankathie Koi, author Stefanie Sargnagel and rights activist Mahsa Ghafari. The show is about to get a revamp that will invoke another Austrian tradition – that of the Varietétheater – to include readings, comedy and music alongside its spoken-word content. “It is going to be a cultural audio magazine, a weekly portion of feminist optimism,” says Drach. “It will also be our own playground for new sonic experiments.”

Luxury: China
Second to none

Most downturns have their upsides and China’s current economic malaise is no different. The market for secondhand luxury goods is booming and Shanghai-based platform Zzer is one of the rising stars. Gross value reached a record ¥2bn (€259m) last year on the back of a push into bricks and mortar.

Zzer currently has four shops and founder and CEO Zhu Tainiqi is targeting at least 10 different cities across China in the next two years. The 35-year-old credits his wife with introducing him to secondhand luxury. It was her bad experience of trying to offload several Chanel handbags that prompted him to swap private equity for entrepreneurship. “The Chinese have been buying half of the global supply of luxury goods for the past 20 years,” he says. “Our closets must be full of handbags and I thought there must be a better way to help circulation.”

Experts authenticate every product on the shelves while sellers set the price and pay Zzer a cut. Customer demand drove the decision to go into physical retail. “More and more buyers wanted to see the goods and when we decided to open our warehouse it exploded,” says Zhu.

Chinese consumers are willing to buy secondhand: handbags generated 60 per cent of Zzer’s revenue in 2023, with jewellery and accessories the next fastest-growing segments. Zhu attributes the change in habits to Japan’s vintage shops, a popular destination among Chinese tourists. “The market size of luxury in China is huge,” says Zhu. “Growth might slow down overall but it’s still going to be a success.”

Travel: Slovenia
Just the ticket

Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, got a new railway station to mark the start of 2024: a temporary pair of platforms outside the Union Brewery.

It is, however, a first step. Due for completion in 2026, the Emonika project promises spectacular new bus and rail stations. Adjacent commercial, residential and retail buildings will fill prime city-centre land that has been embarrassingly empty for decades.

Emonika’s long gestation is largely due to a struggle to find the right combination of stakeholders. Several commercial investors came and went before Hungarian bank OTP stepped in, alongside Slovenian Railways and both the national and city governments. The municipality estimates the overall cost at €1bn.

Ljubljana will get a track-straddling, glass-roofed railway station designed by architects Sadar 1 Vuga. For the bus station, Bevk Perovic will offer passengers an airy terminus.

Architect, urbanist and co-founder of Outsider magazine Matevz Granda questions the need for “another shopping centre” to add to Ljubljana’s already plentiful supply of malls. And he suspects the provision of almost 3,000 car-parking spaces “shows the main purpose of the project: not to get people on a train but to get them into the shopping centre”.

It seems a fair point, given that the works do not include substantial upgrades to improve train speeds and frequencies. The new station will be welcome but an improvement on 19th-century journey times would be even better.

Food: USA
In the bag

When American-Pakistani entrepreneur Umaimah Sharwani was at university, her mother, Paro, would send her Ziploc bags of spices, lentils and rice to make her favourite South Asian comfort foods. By adding water, a hearty meal would be ready in 20 minutes. Now, after working in product development and distribution – including for Google and Glossier – Sharwani has turned her knack for building direct-to-consumer products to South Asian pantry staples.

The result is Paro, a US-based food brand that currently consists of a trio of larder essentials: a red daal, kitchari (a porridge-like dish with mung beans, spices and basmati rice) and tarka seasoning oil to top it off.

“If a barrier to entry to South Asian dishes is time or access to ingredients, I want to do that work for the consumers,” says Sharwani. She launched Paro in February 2023 and the business has seen a growth trajectory with a consistent, month-to-month expansion of 20 per cent.

Sharwani’s advice for those looking to start their own consumer-products business is straightforward. “Look at who you can bring on the journey with you,” she says. “And have a good understanding of where you want to go, because it will help you prioritise.”
fromparo.com

Food: Japan
Bait and switch

Between depleted oceans, an unstable climate and an exploding global population, the outlook for food production looks grim. Japanese manufacturer NH Foods is tackling the problem by developing alternative foods. It launched a range of soy-meat substitutes in 2020 and from April will be selling its latest offering: plant-based tuna. “We were thinking about sustainability, primarily and the scarcity of ocean resources,” says food development manager Kenichi Watanabe. “But also about environmentally conscious consumers and people who don’t want to eat raw fish or maybe can’t for health reasons. We chose tuna because the consumption is huge.”

A scientist who studied cosmetics development, Watanabe spent six months working on the “tuna”, which is made from plant ingredients such as yam powder. NH Foods (the initials stand for Nippon Ham), which was founded in 1942, is best known for its Schau Essen sausages but now also offers dishes such as deep-fried “chicken” and breaded minced “beef” cutlets made with a soy substitute.

“We already had the processing techniques,” says Watanabe. “The big challenge with the tuna was getting the texture and smell right.” For now the tuna will only be going to hotels and restaurants. There’s also a soy meat Korean bulgogi wrap and a plant-based ramen broth that replaces fatty pork with a soy alternative. For this part of its business, the company is looking at annual sales of ¥10bn (€63m) by 2030 and research suggests that the alternative market globally will hit €41bn by the end of the decade.

The Entrepreneurs
Laura Kramer on: The smell of success

To Francis Kurkdjian, imitation is not just flattery; it is a testament to his prowess as a perfumer. “It’s a mark of acknowledgment of your talents,” he says. “Coco Chanel was not afraid of dupes. It shows that you inspire other people.” Kurkdjian is talking about his intoxicating fragrance, Bacarrat Rouge 540. One of the best-selling perfumes of the past decade, it’s also one of the most copied. But countless attempts have been fruitless because, despite best efforts, true craftsmanship is hard to replicate.

Kurkdjian says that he doesn’t envy those trying to match his work. “I prefer to be copied than to be asked to copy other people.” He’s highly confident in the uniqueness of his creations. Kurkdjian’s first fragrance took the world by storm in 1995; Le Mâle for Jean Paul Gaultier became a scent blockbuster. “I was just 25 years old,” he says. “How do you follow that? I had to reinvent myself.”

What followed was the creation of more than 40 perfumes for fashion houses such as Nina Ricci, Burberry, Dior and Elie Saab. Collaborating with designers was a dream come true for Kurkdjian, whose early fascination with fashion fuelled his desire to work for couture houses. By 14 he knew that he wanted to be a perfumer. “I was not into smells at all,” he says. “I was dreaming about the bottle, I was dreaming about the advertising.” And it was that original love of the other aspects of perfume that led to his next move. “The business model of perfume creation was quite removed from my dream job because things were very segmented: perfumers on one side, marketing and design in other people’s hands. I felt disconnected.”

So he decided to take things into his own hands. In 2009, he co-founded the eponymous haute perfumery Maison Francis Kurkdjian with business partner Marc Chaya to bridge the gap between his creations and the final product. “We had this crazy idea to make a brand that’s driven by creativity and by my dreams,” he says. As the fragrance house prepares to celebrate its 15th anniversary, Kurkdjian contemplated the future of scent. “What is important is the end goal, to make someone feel something through their senses,” he says. “We should be confident in the capacity of creators to push boundaries.”

To listen to more interviews with business innovators, tune into Monocle Radio’s ‘The Entrepreneurs‘, live or as a podcast.

Community Builders: The Colorado-based non-profit breaking down ideological polarisation

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson meets the man helping polarised American communities find common ground.

Insurmountable political polarisation now seems as much a part of American life as apple pie. And with a rancorous presidential election looming, the Republican-Democrat divide threatens to consume the country. Clark Anderson believes that it doesn’t have to be that way. As co-founder and executive director of Community Builders, an organisation based in the Colorado town of Glenwood Springs that operates across the state and in others nearby, he is working with civic leaders and communities in frontier towns across the mountainous western US to find common ground on matters transcending grand political narratives. As a Colorado native who grew up in a small community, Anderson (pictured) understands the issues that really matter to locals: walkable towns and cities, affordable housing, sustainable tourism, thriving downtowns and efficient public transportation. The thinking is that if you can persuade people from opposing political camps to agree on the issues that improve their immediate environment, you can stop differences of opinion escalating into conflict and intractable division.

“Rather than creating communities that separate us, how do we create ones that are really inclusive?” says Anderson. “That is increasingly hard, especially within national politics, where we have a hardening of tribes. So breaking that down a little bit at the local level feels good.” The challenges and conflicts faced by the kind of communities that Anderson works with include poorly planned industrial change and rapid population growth. “It’s the Old West: all of these towns were settled around single industries, such as mining, logging or ranching,” he says. “Now they are becoming popular because they have this outstanding lifestyle and scenery. They are also facing economic change as they are forced to diversify.”

Similar stories are playing out across the US as people grapple with demographic change, shifting industry and increased automation. This comes against a backdrop of vitriolic national politics, as some leaders and media outlets seek to portray current divisions as a battle for America’s soul. “That has changed how people show up at the local level and the level of tribalism,” says Anderson. His solution is to identify the fundamental values that connect a community, regardless of their political views, and root discussions and negotiations in those values. Community Builders’ projects range from revitalising downtown areas and underused districts to helping communities to develop sustainable transportation systems. All stakeholders, from civic leaders to citizens, are brought together in a range of larger and smaller groups, as they move towards a common understanding and, if all goes well, compromise.

“Once you get into the local level, a lot of the national-scale politics tends to go away,” says Anderson. He recalls a recent example in the former mining town of Silverton, where deep divides appeared to exist between newcomers from larger, liberal cities and the more conservative long-standing residents. They disagreed over the future of a small family ski resort. “The fundamental finding of common ground came through asking questions about the basics of what matters,” says Anderson. “Why do you love the community? What brought you here? Why do you still live here? What are your hopes for the future?” When asked to spend time together reflecting on these questions, all sides agreed that a giant ski resort would be out of sync with the values they shared.

Anderson stresses that differences of opinion on such matters are not inherently negative; they just reflect the deep connection that people have with the places in which they live. As he says, “Issues such as housing, land use, transportation and how we grow our economies should be divisive – because they’re really important.”

McDonald-Gibson is a journalist and Monocle contributor based in Washington.

The agenda opener: Updates from our correspondents and a Q&A with Hoor al Qasimi

In it together
Tyler Brûlé on why today’s working practices don’t work.

How and when did you become the leader you are today? My most valuable lessons came from teachers, managers, clients and colleagues. I feel that I have done a reasonable job as a business owner and hope that there’s some degree of transmission. Among my senior colleagues, there’s a common understanding about how we report, present, pitch and sell. Time together has helped but our organisation’s rhythm has a lot to do with the work environments we were exposed to.

In an open office, conversations can be overheard and interventions made. New starters have an audience to help them build confidence and improve presentation. Everyone can share in successes or help to pick up the pieces if a deal fails. In short, you have a more switched-on company. But does such a company still exist?

Today, headphones allow colleagues to concentrate but mean that they lose touch with activities around them. Instant messaging makes it easy to type a question rather than walking over to speak in person. The office radio has disappeared as everyone wants their own soundtrack. No one takes a call out in the open.

I get the need for keeping things quiet but has the modern office become too hushed? Isn’t it time to increase the volume, celebrate the wins, share in the joke and simply follow along? As we delve into the world of property, it’s important to consider the places that help us to learn, improve and admire the people around us.

An extended version of this piece appeared in The Monocle Weekend Edition newsletter. Sign up for free at monocle.com/minute

Reporting from…

Monocle has a network of correspondents in cities around the world. Our brief updates here include news on an unexpected discovery in London, Bangkok’s marijuana U-turn and an arty theme park in LA

London
Buried treasures

A London office-led development, the Liberty of Southwark, has amended its construction plans after the discovery of a Roman mausoleum and mosaics. The building will now integrate these findings into its design to preserve a slice of the city’s varied history.

Bangkok
Up in smoke

The sale of marijuana for recreational use was decriminalised in Bangkok just 18 months ago. But now a new law is expected to ban it again. The U-turn could see weed-dispensary shops disappear in a puff of smoke – or quickly rebrand as medical centres.

Los Angeles
Ride of a lifetime

Canadian singer Drake has helped to rescue the Luna Luna “artist amusement park”, which has been in storage for almost 40 years. Last seen in Hamburg in 1987, it includes a carousel by Keith Haring and a ferris wheel by Jean-Michel Basquiat. It’s now open in LA’s Arts District.

The interrogator
Hoor al Qasimi
Director, Sharjah Art Foundation

Hoor Al Qasimi is an Emirati art curator, director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and creative director of London-based fashion brand Qasimi. She was recently named as the first non-Japanese director of the Aichi Triennale, which will run its sixth edition in 2025. She tells us about her work, her travel reads and her multilingual listening habits.

What have you been working on lately?
I’m in Cuba at the moment, curating the third edition of a biennial at Matanzas called Rios Intermitentes, which means “intermittent rivers” in Spanish. It was founded by Cuban artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. We are preparing to open on 6 April.

Coffee, tea or something pressed to go with the headlines?
Coffee, non-stop. Double espresso, no sugar.

What’s on your magazine stack?
I used to read a lot of magazines but these days I travel too much to carry things along with me. Now I tend to rely on my Kindle. I’m doing a lot of research reading, since I’m working on many exhibitions at the same time. For this project I’m reading Matanzas: The Cuba Nobody Knows by Miguel A Bretos.

Any movie recommendations?
When I was working on the Lahore Biennial in Pakistan in 2020 I saw Manto. It’s about the life of the titular poet during Partition. It’s amazing.

A favourite bookshop?
There’s a place in Lahore in Pakistan called Pak Tea House, where writers such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Manto went during Partition. On the street next to it are rows of bookshops and every Sunday there’s a second- hand book market. It was very special spending time there finding old publications.

Any podcast recommendations?
I’m listening to a lot of language podcasts to refresh my languages, mainly SBS radio – French, Japanese, Mandarin and German. I also hosted a podcast called Biennial Bytes and we have a new one called Speaking of Art.

In the driving seat

Public transport in London is usually something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Among the exceptions, however, are those rare journeys on the automated Docklands Light Railway (DLR) when a vacant seat behind the windscreen allows you to pretend that you’re driving the train.

London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is reportedly considering enhancing this pleasure. As 54 new trains are absorbed into the dlr fleet, the front seats might be fitted with dummy steering wheels, possibly made from cardboard. This suggests that it has been a while since Khan last used any London transport. Any such adornment will need to be made of tougher stuff than cardboard to avoid being destroyed or stolen, to say nothing of the prospect of inciting fights among children – and, indeed, adults – desperate for a go.

The initiative also misunderstands the appeal of “driving” the DLR. Whether accompanied by “choo-choo” noises from children or occurring furtively in the heads of adults, it’s a playtime for the imagination – and a delight that would only be diluted by the addition of gimmicky props.

Fake woos

Though single people often have to deal with intrusive dating questions, these usually come from their family and friends – not their local government. In Tokyo, however, the love lives of residents has become a top priority for city officials, who are alarmed by the declining birth and marriage rate.

Rather than focusing on the financial burden of parenthood, demanding work culture or poor maternity protection, the government has created a dating app, which is expected to launch this year. The developers enlisted an existing Japanese dating app, Tapple, to engineer the algorithm behind finding the perfect match.

The app follows a string of initiatives to tackle the baby-making problem. The most bizarre so far is AI-generated “girlfriend” Koi Suru AI, also created with the help of Tapple, who mimics the intimacy of a relationship, supposedly to encourage men to try the real thing. Though the idea of government-assisted meet-cutes might be a bit dystopian, let’s hope that Tokyo’s efforts can perhaps provide a road map for other countries with declining birth rates.

Heat of the moment

The sauna is usually thought of as a haven of solemn, silent, sweaty contemplation. Not at the Palac Saturna Rzymskie, a spa in the Polish town of Czeladz. It will be the venue for the second annual Aufguss World Cup Freestyle from 21 to 24 February.

Aufguss is a sauna ritual in which the master of ceremonies wafts heat and scent by flailing a towel, often to the accompaniment of music. The World Cup brings a competitive element to bear, awarding points for such elements as “smooth transitions”, “respect for the stove” and “waving techniques”, deducting them for dropping your towel more than three times.

It is arguable that the event’s billing (“The Battle of the Gladiators”) rather oversells the risks involved.

Howls of derision

Few issues disproportionately inflame electorates like the hunting of wild animals and it seems that it will become an issue ahead of the EU elections in June. In several countries, parties courting the rural vote are keen to make it easier to blast away at wildlife – and wolves in particular. Sweden permitted a wolf hunt earlier this year; Germany, France, the Netherlands and others are contemplating something similar.

Thanks to EU protection laws, Europe’s wolves have multiplied and are now helping themselves to tens of thousands of farmyard animals a year. The vulpine cause wasn’t aided last year by whichever wolf attacked a pony belonging to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Love letters

The French bought more than six million romance novels last year: since 2020, sales have almost doubled annually. Though “chick lit” has a long and distinguished history, it has often been dismissed as a second-tier entertainment and given little critical attention. While US author Colleen Hoover dominates the bestseller lists, France is also supporting homegrown talent. The 27-year-old Morgane Moncomble recently dethroned popular bande dessinée series Asterix and Gaston from the top of the charts, selling 60,000 copies of her latest novel, An Autumn to Forgive You, within three weeks. But romance is in the air in other nations around the world too.

1
South Africa
In September 2023, romance The Thing with Zola by Zibu Sithole made waves. The genre often jostles with poetry for the top spots on the country’s charts.

2
Brazil
More than 16 per cent of the population over the age of 18 – about 25 million people – reportedly bought at least one romance novel in 2023.

3
Hungary
Despite a ban on “inappropriate” books, Hungarian novelist Anita Tomor is topping charts with works such as Sugar Daddy and Now We Dream Together.

Illustrator: Hubert Van Rie