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
Extra: Enid Marx
You’ve looked at, lazed on and may have even licked her work but have you ever heard of Enid Marx? With her textiles, prints, illustrations and stamps she deftly defined the design of the mid-1900s in Britain.
Freespace: Venice Architecture Biennale 2018
Venice, a city of canals, church bells, bobbing boats and over-fed pigeons is a-chatter with talk about the just-opened Venice Architecture Biennale. Josh Fehnert sits down with the directors of this year’s show. He also talks to the commissioners behind the UK and US exhibitions and takes note of the…
Extra: Oficios Asociados
Argentinian studio Oficios Asociados was founded five years ago, with the notion of taking control over every aspect of the architectural process, from concept to construction. We visit Buenos Aires to find out more.
Why go to architecture school?
Does architectural education need an overhaul? We put the question to the heads of two leading architecture schools: London’s Architectural Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Plus: Riba’s play at creating an architecture workshop for children.
Extra: Sitting pretty
Thonet’s No 14 model chair is a ubiquitous but often overlooked success story of commercial furniture design. The Viennese café chair is still made using just six components, which are easily taken apart for to allow for a simple shipping that has seen the chair become a global icon.
Jim Olson: framing nature
We meet architect Jim Olson to ask how buildings can bring us closer to nature. Plus: we talk making it in the city at London Craft Week and proffer a little advice for younger designers looking to secure space on the exhibition circuit.
Extra: ‘Brasilia: Life After Design’
Building a city from scratch may seem like a dream commission but, as Oscar Niemeyer discovered with Brasilia, it isn’t always so simple. We ask documentary-maker Bart Simpson how much the city’s design has dictated the lives of its citizens.
Meeting Michael Anastassiades
We sit down with London-based designer Michael Anastassiades in Milan. Plus a word with a Saudi princess on the nation’s first fashion week and telling our Arsenale from our elbow ahead of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Andiamo.
Extra: Savile Row – a cut above the rest?
Clothing trends change faster than the seasons but the tailors of Savile Row have held onto the skills and traditions that have seen them through. But who are the designers shaping its future?
Made in Britain
This week we look at how the ‘made in Britain’ brand is fairing, sit down with UK chair-maker Goodfield and rifle through the textile prints at Liberty department store.
