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
Urban violence
Are certain cities synonymous with certain crimes? We speak with urban activists from three different regions about dealing with violence and ask if design can change the way the public perceives the police.
Tall Stories 53: Cairo Tower
We head to Egypt to hear the story of the Cairo Tower, the tallest structure in North Africa. Designed by Egyptian architect Naoum Shebib, it is one of the city’s most well-known modern monuments.
‘Frontier City’ and missing links
We speak to Shawn Micallef about his new book ‘Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness’, hear about Melbourne’s missing rail link and ask if Paris will be able to connect the city to its suburbs.
Tall Stories 52: strolling around Bologna
We take an evening stroll around Bologna and enjoy some of the city’s beautiful outdoor public spaces, from the central square, the Piazza Maggiore, to walkways sheltered by medieval porticoes.
The built environment and Toronto’s missing middle
This week we talk to Sarah Williams Goldhagen on the way our built environment shapes us, hear about Toronto’s missing middle and New York’s latest addition: a floating food forest.
Tall Stories 51: The Old England department store
We wax lyrical about one of Brussels most spectacular art-nouveau structures: the Old England department store, which is now home to the Musical Instruments Museum.
Something old, something new
We discuss China’s plans to build a brand-new city three times the size of New York, hear how Serbia’s capital is preparing for a cycling revolution and examine the project trying to “beautify” Cairo’s downtown.
Tall Stories 50: the house of Black Madonna
When Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque pioneered cubism in Paris, young Czech artists such as Pavel Janák and Josef Gočár saw the artistic movement as a way to dilute their country’s decorative architectural style. Czechoslovakia was one of the first nations to apply cubism to architecture and the house of…
Sensory urbanism
How can we improve the way we interact with our cities? This week we explore a ‘sensory’ waterfront in Seattle, hop on a smelling tour of Austria’s capital and ask if Lisbon is tackling noise as it should.
Tall Stories 49: Daily News Building
‘The New York Daily News’ is no longer headquartered on East 42nd Street, but the Daily News Building still stands as a shining art deco tribute to the art of the newspaper. And while its designer left an indelible mark on the city, to many outside observers the building might…
