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
Stockholm syndrome
We report from Stockholm Design Week, including emerging talents and design at the Norwegian Embassy. Meanwhile, as Netflix releases a new documentary series about design, we speak to one of its producers, former ‘Wired’ editor in chief Scott Dadich.
On Design 27: Will Rome warm to its new congress centre?
The building has recently opened after a 16-year wait. Designed by Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas, it is an aesthetic triumph – but a fraught political climate has made for a mixed reception.
Glazed and confused
We visit a show at Central Saint Martins that shines a light on ceramics design. Plus, a visit to a Portuguese rug atelier who is fusing traditional techniques with a contemporary aesthetic, and a conversation with photographer Paul Barbera about his new book documenting the workspaces of some of the…
On Design 26: Can you own a colour?
This week design journalist Kassia St Clair unpicks a row that’s rolling on in the aftermath of sculptor and artist Anish Kapoor’s much-publicised attempt to copyright a colour. We hear who’s come out red faced and which parties stayed whiter-than-white in the fall out.
The design game
This week we don our sporting colours to mull over the role of stadiums in our cities and think about the role of colour in sport. Plus, a tour of a modernist complex in Belo Horizonte by the late Oscar Niemeyer.
On Design 25: Can wearing a headscarf define a nation?
Few items of clothing have as much symbolism stitched into their history as the keffiyeh. Mary Pelletier explains how this traditional scarf became a political icon in Palestine.
Zaha Hadid: artist or architect?
We visit an exhibition of drawings and paintings that cast light on the formative years of the late Zaha Hadid and ask about the enduring pull of the French capital in the world of couture, with a rundown of January’s packed fashion calendar. Plus: the finest from Paris’s preeminent design…
On Design 24: How did Portugal perfect the pavement?
By arranging small flat pieces of stone by hand to form patterns and images, Portugal created one of its most iconic symbols: the ‘calçada portuguesa’, or Portuguese pavement. Monocle 24’s Carlota Rebelo mulls over the path that the craft has taken.
Pitti Uomo 91
We head to Florence to bring you a report from the 91st edition of Pitti Uomo, one of the most exciting events in the menswear calendar.
On Design 23: What can a title sequence add to a film?
This week Ben Rylan, presenter of ‘The Cinema Show’, takes a closer look at an often overlooked piece of cinematic design: the opening title sequence. Though less and less common, the title sequence can be a powerful tool for setting the mood of a film. And when we asked Ben…
