The ideal of the high street is a civic space where concepts and community can flourish. This issue is all about those shops and the people making it a reality.
From the ancient Greeks onwards, wise governments have seen the benefits of outsourcing. But what would a modern state look like if it put all of its ministries out to tender, employing the best foreign governments and…
Bonn served as Germany’s provisional capital for 50 years during the Cold War while Berlin was split in two. With government affairs still divided between these two cities, being a civil servant who links the two is all…
Politics and cost have prevented Japan from putting a human up there but, they say, their cosmic focus is not the vain flag-planting of the space race, rather research and exploration. A strategy that has led to them dev…
Buoyed by 100 years of heritage, Alenia Aermacchi has engineered a venerable position at the forefront ofcivilian and military aeronautics. Monocle tours the company’s Turin facility for a pre-flight check.
It’s not even five years since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war but in that time its capital has undergone an incredible transformation. There’s still plenty to do but the burgeoning arts scene and the restless optimism of…
The saga of finding a new Monocle headquarters continues and while we’ve been dreaming about what our home will look like, we’ve also been thinking about our next retail venture and noticing a gaping hole in the newsstand…
A new crop of bakeries is resurrecting the art of Spanish bread-making, a tradition disrupted by civil war and industrialisation. We sample the upper crust.
Encounters with Italian law are frequently less than elegant, but one northern notary’s offices present a very civil partnership between clean modernity and solemn tradition.
Waking from the nightmare of war, occupation and civil unrest, Iraq has ambitious plans for the renovation and remodelling of its cities and infrastructure. The rebuiliding isn’t purely a physical process – a new mindset…
In Damascus, there are places that appear untouched by Syria’s civil war. But in cities such as Aleppo and Homs, the destruction is overwhelming. Among the rubble, people try to patch up homes and lives – and long for a…
Mexico City approved its first constitution this month: the Carta Magna. The document sets out the basic laws and citizen rights that the capital city will uphold, many of which are far more progressive than those found…
