Sponsored by
Monocle on Design
Your essential guide to design, covering furniture, craft, and architecture. Discover fresh stories, rising talents, and the latest from top studios.
Latest Episodes
Elemental: the work of Alejandro Aravena
We meet Pritzker prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena to talk politics, climate change and architecture’s role in turbulent times. Plus: what is director Wes Anderson up to in Vienna?
Meeting Olafur Eliasson
What can designers learn from artists – and where does one discipline end and the other begin? We sit down with Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson to find out. Plus: London-based watchmaker Uniform Wares on keeping time with the industry and our Fashion editor’s chat with a brand worth knowing.
The Barbican estate: living with a legend
Fifty years since the first residents moved in, we explore life in London’s much-discussed brutalist housing complex. Plus: a tour of Sweden’s newly reopened National Museum after a five-year transformation.
Architecture for animals
We ask what designers dream up when they put animals at the centre of their thinking, see the silkscreen printers pushing on in Beirut and visit a Stirling prize-winning building to augur the future of the news industry.
‘Why Materials Matter’
We peek inside the innovative Berlin-based design company that’s developing pollution-eating façades to tackle city smog. Plus: Mexican architect Frida Escobedo on her love of traditional materials and a discussion on the ethics of what we build with in new book ‘Why Materials Matter’.
Hostile architecture
We look at the ups and downs of ‘hostile’ or ‘defensive’ architecture, those prickly interventions designed to curb anti-social behaviour, vandalism and lingering. Plus: a new book about weaving and a special dispatch from Vienna Design Week.
Fixing public space
Public space in cities is increasingly scarce, we seek out an example in Lebanon that’s getting it right. Plus: Monocle’s Fashion editor Jamie Waters on why Celine’s new creative director is causing a stir and a report on the designers who call Vancouver home.
‘California Captured’
We make for the sun-soaked hills of southern California to examine the post-war modernist-architecture boom (and mine a few lessons for today). Plus: Josh Fehnert talks to Katie Treggiden about London Design Festival.
Meeting Renzo Piano
A London exhibition sheds new light on maestro Renzo Piano’s life work; we sit down with the man himself. Plus: we head Las Vegas to discover how graphic design has shaped Sin City.
Meeting Manuel Aires Mateus
We meet Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus at his new headquarters to talk new projects, the value of teaching and why he’d never open a studio anywhere but Lisbon. Plus: Maison & Objet’s designer of the year, Ramy Fischler, and our picks from the London Design Biennale.
