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?
Extra: The big Apple
Steve Jobs once said ‘Design is how it works’ – and it was a mantra that became a cornerstone in the success of iPhone. This week, as Apple launches its new iPad Pro (the latest in a long line of recent releases), we look back at some of the design…
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.
Extra: Strings attached: Gibson guitars
It’s been a turbulent few months for Nashville’s Gibson guitars, which has just announced former Levi’s president James Curleigh as its new CEO. That’s music to the ears of fans of the ailing brand, with a proposed revamp aimed at retuning the business. We look back at the designs that…
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.
Extra: Bricking it
“Bricks and mortar” is a phrase that evokes feelings of safety, reliability and permanence – but do these ancient materials pass muster in a world of sparkling glass towers? One architecture firm we spoke to thinks so. Henley Halebrown recently celebrated the traditional brick-built trope (with a twist) in the…
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.
Extra: Centre Point – taming a white elephant
The Centre Point building has been a firm fixture of the London skyline since its completion in 1966. Designed by George Marsh, its 33 storeys have remained virtually empty ever since. Together with Conran + Partners, Almacantar has redeveloped the Grade II-listed building with heartening intentions: but can it redesign…
‘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’.
Extra: The Frankfurt kitchen
Considered to be a milestone in domestic architecture, we trace the roots of the modern kitchen back to 1920’s Frankfurt and the woman who cooked up a storm within in: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky.
