The Urbanist
Monocle’s guide to better cities. Explore urban innovation, cutting-edge infrastructure, and compact living with insights from planners, architects, and city leaders.
Latest Episodes
Tall Stories 126: Millennium Dome
This bold urban project was designed to usher the UK into the third millennium but it didn’t quite go according to plan.
On the move
It’s the last instalment of our series unpacking ‘The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities’. This week we turn our focus to mobility.
Tall Stories 125: Helsinki Central Railway Station
With 200,000 passengers a day, Helsinki Central Railway Station is Finland’s most visited building. But its significance for the Nordic nation lies in much more than just the people who travel through its doors.
Work & the city
We continue to unpack our new book, ‘The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities’. This week we turn our focus to chapter 7, looking at the places where we work.
Tall Stories 124: The Melnikov House
Konstantin Melnikov’s most significant building was the house he built for himself in 1929. It remained in the Melnikov family for decades until, in 2014 after much legal wrangling, it was taken over by the Moscow Museum of Architecture.
Building Better Cities: Barcelona
We continue to explore the pages of ‘The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities’. This week we’re off to the Catalonian capital to hear how the city has changed through the years and what lessons it has learned for the future.
Tall Stories 123: Rowley, Canada
After being a ghost town for decades, Rowley in central Alberta has been reinvented. With old Western-style buildings still intact, it has become a quirky spot in the middle of the Canadian prairies and an open-air museum of sorts.
Building better cities
All this month we’re dedicating the show to chapters from our new book: ‘The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities’. We start off with a series of essays that look at some of the challenges our urban areas face and how cities would be nothing without the people who inhabit…
Tall Stories 122: Peckham Rye
Peckham Rye has long been a source of inspiration to artists and writers; in this week’s Tall Stories we explore the history and atmosphere of the London park where William Blake once saw angels and to which Muriel Spark summoned devils.
Rediscovering London
There is something magical about finding an old photo of a familiar place and seeing how much it has changed. It is a powerful reminder of the life that unfolded on the streets long before you arrived.
