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
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.
Tall Stories 121: Toronto: The Bentway
Monocle’s Toronto bureau chief shows us around The Bentway, a newly opened public area for the city under the Gardiner Expressway.
Urban thoughts
We tour a new exhibition shining a light on Jerusalem, meet the architecture duo building libraries to bring the community together and ask: if everyone else was giving up their data, would you do it too?
Tall Stories 120: Hyde Park’s Mastaba
Monocle editor Andrew Tuck takes us on a stroll through London’s Hyde Park to visit a structure floating in the Serpentine: the Mastaba.
Book club
We profile two new books: Alexandra Langue’s ‘The Design of Childhood’ and Kelvin Campbell’s ‘Making Massive Small Change’.
Tall Stories 119: Fritz Wotruba
Far away from the splendours of Vienna’s historic city centre lies a stupendous piece of architecture. It’s all concrete and glass, and it would be a perfect example of brutalist architecture were it not more of a sculpture than a building.
Privacy
Our thoughts on what should be private or off-limits are changing in every aspect of our lives, including the way we inhabit cities.
Tall Stories 118: Domino Park
Monocle’s Ed Stocker takes us to the Williamsburg waterfront in New York, where a new space has just opened to the public.
Shhh, be quiet
What role does the humble public library play in cities today? Join us as we hear about the impromptu libraries popping up in private houses, reminisce about the bookmobile, discover how one library has employed a team of bats and hear about public libraries in North America.
Tall Stories 117: the hypermarket
These white elephants are blamed for destroying communities around the world but Monocle’s Fernando Augusto Pacheco suggests that we look at them differently.
