Issues

Literacy drive

France is known for its buzzy kiosques à journaux but the appetite for the printed page extends well beyond city newsstands. Anyone who has stopped at one of the country’s service stations knows how well-stocked the racks are with newspapers and glossy magazines alike. Among drinks fridges and rows of travel snacks, you will spot staples such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Paris Match alongside niche fashion quarterlies, foreign titles and dozens of children’s activity books. “Foreigners are often surprised when they see our selection,” says Olivier Granier, director of commercial installations at Vinci Autoroutes, the company that operates 180 service stations across French motorways. “What makes France different from competitors in other European countries is that our motorways have a toll system so people frequenting our service stations are rarely commuters; 80 per cent of them are long-distance travellers and we want to reflect their interests in the media we stock.”

For operators such as Vinci, that means tailoring their service station offer, with a bigger selection of beach-friendly reads and children’s titles during the summer holiday season, and more foreign-language publications at autoroutes popular with English, Italian or Spanish motorists. At stations on the way to the Mediterranean, holidaymakers will find dozens of yachting and nautical sports magazines, while those stopping in Alpine areas will be able to read up on the best hiking equipment in specialist publications. This doesn’t only make for a refreshing break at the station: filling up on things to read in the car will most likely give your journey a lift too – as long as you don’t suffer from motion sickness.

Route masters

A good trail map shouldn’t be consulted on a screen. Chuck Kitterman, chief cartographer for Seattle-based company Green Trails Maps, spreads out a large concertina map for an area known as Rattlesnake Ledge on the back of his Toyota Tacoma. He has logged nearly 390,000km this way, crisscrossing the US and camping out.

Digital mapping apps may have recently gained popularity but the 50-year-old Green Trails sets itself apart with rigorously researched hard copies and its cartographers hike many of the trails themselves. “Our paper map is more detailed and accurate than a digital product,” says Kitterman as he loads up his backpack with a compass, gps devices, a smartphone and trekking poles. Green Trails updates maps for popular destinations roughly every three years.

The 6.5km path to Rattlesnake Ledge underwent renovation last year, which is why this map needs a refresh. Kitterman has a sixth sense for noticing small features – an abandoned side trail, a newly installed bench – that he marks on his gps device. These observations feed into what he calls “the style, art and feel of the map”.

He trained in cartography at the University of California-Santa Barbara in the 1980s, back when mapmakers huddled in darkrooms over photographic images on a Mylar surface. With scribing tool and magnifying glass, they scraped away emulsion to create a map template, which was then sent to the printers. He brought that diligence to Green Trails, where he has worked since 1995 in addition to running his own cartography business. While Kitterman uses digital tools, he credits his traditional training for his precision. “You had to go slow and be careful,” he says. “It forced you to be really prepared before you actually started making content.”

By contrast, he thinks that some cartographers now rely too much on geographic information systems (GIS), missing essential know-how. “All of a sudden there were all these not-very-well produced maps with odd colours, weird typefaces and things that didn’t make sense, such as straight-line segments with nothing curved,” he says. Green Trails prides itself on clear typefaces, careful colour choices and atypical but user-friendly features, such as including both distance and elevation at trail junctions. Many of the maps are printed on waterproof, tear-proof paper. These choices are a legacy of the founder, Walt Locke, a former Boeing programme co-ordinator who worked on the first lunar lander and the 747.

Alan Coburn, company president since 1993, is confident of the enduring appeal of hard-copy maps. “Anyone who spends a lot of time in rural areas knows that a lot can go south with devices,” he says. Green Trails jokingly but convincingly advertises its product, distributed by outdoors publisher Mountaineers Books as “solar-powered, no batteries required”. There are currently 161 maps tackling six western US states, with eight new releases planned for spring 2024. The brand sells some 70,000 units a year.

On a recent trip to Utah, Kitterman stopped in at 15 shops to hawk the company’s wares; only one turned him down on the grounds that printed maps no longer sell. The growing popularity of outdoor recreation means that the customer base for Green Trails is strong. “We keep highly trained cartographers because we want the art and science of cartography to be in the maps, so that they can communicate the content accurately to customers,” says Coburn. “That gives it a lot of shelf appeal – it’s a work of art in information.”
greentrailsmaps.com

Act to follow

Bangkok-based entrepreneur Marc Close has spent the past two years and about 34m baht (€930,000) of his money creating a performing arts theatre for the city. His project, People of Ari, aims to bridge a gap between mainstream shows and shoestring Thai-language productions. “Bangkok does restaurants and bars really well but it’s not a mature arts market,” says Close, an Australian-born engineering graduate. “It’s a cosmopolitan city, so we should have a diverse array of options.”

A big portion of his start-up capital was spent on acquiring two vacant shops inside a residential building in the Ari district, building a modular theatre to accommodate a range of disciplines. Though small, the premium, 60-seater space is part of Close’s mission to make drama more accessible. “If you don’t invest in the set, you have to use your imagination a lot more to transport yourself,” he says. “The experience has to be immersive – and that means spending on design, sound and lighting.”

The main theatre space’s inaugural performance, Journey into the Forest, was an interactive musical featuring singing, dancing, feathery costumes and tribal make-up. On Saturdays the performers played to sold-out audiences; for the rest of the week the set was used to host a variety of performances, from an Asian vinyl night to a beatboxing Buddhist monk. “We plan to change the headline act every month,” says Close. “Each one will set the scene for the full programme and the curation will tie everything together on set.” Forthcoming events include a Japanese western, a cyberpunk show and an immersive sound experience. “We will tell a story through a progression in sound,” he says. “You will feel it more than watch it.”

Originally from Sydney, Close has been living in Thailand for 10 years. At 29 he sold Bespokify, the fashion technology brand he founded, to Zozo, Japan’s largest fashion e-commerce company. Today he continues to run it on behalf of Zozo from a two-storey, converted house that is a short walk from the theatre. The lush grounds and tropical modernist architecture play host to Aussie brunch restaurant Yellow Lane, as well as a monthly market. Two more of the rooms can be hired out by local artists and performers.

People of Ari provides an opportunity for up-and-coming troupes to stage their shows in the theatre too. Curators Mia Tongpan and Thanisa Durongkaveroj spend much of their time liaising with Thailand’s creative community, dealing with a deluge of requests by groups seeking to access the venue. Spaces that understand and support artists are clearly very much needed in Bangkok.

The model has plenty of promise. Close hopes that the combination of ticket sales with those of food and beverages will soon make these creative projects profitable – and even lucrative. But his main return on investment is personal. “You should never do something that you don’t benefit from because it makes it hard to assess quality,” he says. “It’s also hard to get excited about something that doesn’t directly add value to your life.” Does he harbour any stage dreams of his own? “No, never,” he says. “I like to be the one in the audience seeing everyone’s faces as they enjoy the show.”
peopleofari.com

Hive minds

There’s a buzz in California’s fertile Central Valley right now. Israeli start-up BeeHero planted its flag there in 2018, equipping beekeepers with sensors that monitor the health of their hives. By the end of this year, BeeHero, which has attracted $64m (€58m) in investment, will service 350,000 hives globally.

“Beekeepers once had to physically open the hives to check them but in some cases that was too late,” says co-founder Omer Davidi, noting the decline in pollinating bees in the US, which has alarmed farmers.

Even for a technology firm such as BeeHero, it’s important to meet the clients. “Everyone who joins our team has to open a working hive and look inside,” says Davidi, who helped to build the first sensor in a garage in Tel Aviv. “It’s just amazing to see how they operate.”
beehero.io

Frozen Assets

Slow to embrace the frozen ready meal, Japan has cut to pioneering new freezing technology that can preserve the look, colour and taste of even the most subtle dishes. Tokyo company Daybreak, which was founded in 2013, is leading the way, showing that it is possible to freeze anything from top-class sushi to sandwiches without impairing the flavour.

“In conventional food freezing, the water inside the cells turns into ice and the cell membranes are damaged as a result of the enlarged ice crystals becoming distorted,” says Daybreak’s Momoko Imura. “This leads to changes in quality, such as the loss of umami flavour components, and changes in texture and colour due to further oxidation.” Daybreak’s quick-freezing technology avoids chunky ice crystals and minimises damage. No additives are required either.

The company launched its own specialist freezer, the ArtLock, for restaurants, shops and caterers, and has a food lab where it is testing every type of food for its freezing potential. Complicated dishes can be frozen in their entirety, allowing a chef’s original presentation to be preserved. Food waste is also reduced and the period that frozen dishes can be stored is lengthened.

Daybreak advises businesses how to freeze (and thaw) and sells ArtLock frozen ingredients and deli dishes to the industry, including cut fruit, fish and onigiri rice balls. These appear and taste as fresh as the day they were frozen. It’s good news for the environment and consumers alike.
d-break.co.jp

The Entrepreneurs
Tom Edwards on…
Reinventing the wheel

Adrien Roose, CEO and co-founder of e-bike innovators Cowboy (see page 183), successfully navigates the London traffic to zip into monocle HQ on his own two wheels. Looking fresh despite running the gauntlet of errant taxis and double-deckers, he bounds into Midori House, eager to discuss the Brussels-based brand’s journey.

“The first prototype only took us six months,” he says. “In 2017 we were just the three co-founders [Roose, Karim Slaoui and Tanguy Goretti]. We spent most of our time on site with suppliers, pitching them our vision. Those months were magical; working together to build a product with very little time and money. And that was an amazing proof of concept that enabled us to start raising proper capital. We went from prototype to Cowboy One, which we launched a year later. Since then we’ve been iterating the process, nearly on a yearly basis.”

The classic Cowboy model is now on its fourth edition and more than 50,000 bikes have been sold – 20,000 in 2022 alone. There are plenty of reasons behind those numbers: the bikes are made in Belgium with over 200 custom details designed for urban riding on every machine. What’s more, Cowboy’s app, connected riding experience and newer features such as wireless phone charging, deliver a class-leading experience. But Roose knows that their reputation is built on the promise of close-to-effortless progress around the city. That’s where Cowboy’s proprietary adaptive power technology detects resistance including headwinds, inclines or extra weight (yes please to that second helping at lunch!) and adapts the assistance accordingly.

Roose is rightly proud of Cowboy’s holistic approach to product development. A happy by-product of owning these processes is the capture of a real breadth of user data. “We are in a unique position,” he says. “We can talk directly to thousands of cyclists via the app and know where they cycle, where their bikes get stolen, where they have accidents. That [data] would be beneficial in helping cities to improve infrastructure.”

“If you want to increase the number of cyclists on roads, you have to begin by making people feel safe,” adds Roose. “We should use our voice to start having conversations with cities to drive change.”

To hear more from business owners on the move, listen to Monocle Radio’s weekly programme, ‘The Entrepreneurs’.

Final Touch

For every person who’s retreated to leisurewear and homeworking, there’s someone determined to steal a march, cut a dash and up the stakes. Men from New York to Paris and Tokyo are re-embracing formal dressing, using it as a signifier that they care. And one simple accessory says it all: a good tie. “When I dress in the morning, choosing a tie is the very last thing I do because it’s a delightful moment,” says Stefano Bigi (pictured), co-owner of Milanese tie shop Bigi Cravatte. It is also, he says, “a form of respect towards the people I’ll meet”.

The business, which traces its roots back to 1938 and Bigi’s grandfather, creates and sells its own collections too, helping Italians look – and feel – their sharpest. “You can be elegant with or without a tie,” says Bigi. “But a tie always makes you feel good.”

Cabin Pressure

Annabelle Chapman discovers how airlines are limbering up to meet the latest sky-high expectations of business travellers.

One thing is clear: while the pandemic accelerated the rise of video conferences at the expense of business travel, they are no replacement for in-person meetings. Indeed, in a survey of 475 business leaders across all sectors of the UK economy by cbi Economics published this year, more than nine in 10 respondents said that business travel is key to building relationships and sharing knowledge.

With passenger numbers almost back at pre-pandemic levels according to the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s net profits for 2023 are forecast to hit $9.8bn (€8.9bn). Furthermore, the sector is expected to recover to 80 per cent of 2019 levels this year, up from 65 per cent in 2022, according to the Global Business Travel Association. Airlines are launching a flurry of new routes to capitalise on these numbers, including many long-haul ones. United Airlines has recently launched direct flights from Berlin to Washington, while Japan Airlines has announced a new daily non-stop service from Tokyo to Doha, the first direct flight to the Middle East operated by a Japanese carrier.

Research by Deloitte indicates that live events will be a major contributor to business travel demand this year. After all, that’s where new connections are made – standing in line for coffee or lunch. Still, there are signs of shifts in business travellers’ behaviour. For one, they are increasingly selective. “More and more often, individual corporate customers, rather than their purchasing managers, pick the airlines they want to fly with,” says Andrew Nocella, executive vice-president of United Airlines. “This change in consumer behaviour was locked in during the pandemic and now seems irreversible to me.”

To compete for business travellers, airlines will have to better understand their needs. “Business-travel suppliers need to know more about their corporate travel customers,” write Adrian Müller and Andreas Wittmer, based on a study they conducted among frequent travellers earlier this year. Examples of this more personalised approach include the Swiss Senses redesign planned for 2025, which CEO Dieter Vranckx has called “the most comprehensive cabin renewal in the history of our company”. In a similar vein, Lufthansa is investing €2bn in product and service over the next two years, which will include a new business class with seven seat types, created in collaboration with design studio Pearson Lloyd. The highlights include closable sliding doors – a must for business travellers hoping to recharge before negotiations across the globe.

“With more people in control of where and how they work, business travel has opened up to a broader base of travellers who do not want to compromise their experience,” writes the London-based studio. “Given the multiplicity of user needs, a single-concept solution would no longer be enough.” We agree: when it comes to the future of business travel, one size certainly does not fit all.

Images: BeHere, Cowboy, Daybreak.

Say it with flowers

For nearly 20 years, Steve Bloom has been running the Portland Japanese Garden, often considered the finest of the estimated 635 Japanese-style gardens outside the motherland and a premier training centre for gardeners. But he has ambitions far beyond the horticultural, believing that “Japanese gardens create a state of mind and a state of soul”. And, he says, this transformational power can even be tapped into for peacemaking. To prove his point, Bloom organises peace symposiums with a botanical bent where he introduces people to the garden’s Japan Institute, which launched last year, aimed at fostering international dialogue via the soft power of the Japanese garden. After outings to Tokyo and London, he will be heading to New York in September, followed by Johannesburg, São Paulo and Sydney.

The institute’s physical home in Portland, will offer accommodation and workspaces for visiting artists and gardeners. Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who has already designed the garden’s tea-ceremony pavilion and art galleries, is converting an old chapel into an event space. “The institute is an incubator for thinkers and artists to live and create together through the lens of Japan,” says Bloom.

Today the Japanese Garden draws more than 500,000 visitors annually but it wasn’t always that way. In the 1960s when Japanese gardeners arrived to plant a monument for postwar peace and reconciliation, protesters taunted them with racial slurs and one of their number was stabbed. Despite the attack, the 2.2-hectare project opened in 1967. “The community that didn’t want this garden, to the point of nearly killing a man, has come to embrace it as the number one cultural jewel in the state of Oregon,” says Bloom.

And the city’s Japanese perspective has also had a commercial impact: Ajinomoto, Muji and Snow Peak all chose Portland as their entry point to expand into North American markets. Now Bloom wants to aid diplomacy by using Japanese gardens as a backdrop for peace talks around the world. The first tour he led at the Portland garden was for ambassadors to the UN from seven Asian countries. “If we just had all of our negotiating meetings here, there would be world peace,” he says. Now he is out planting that seed of an idea on a global scale.

japanesegarden.org

The Foreign Desk
Andrew Mueller on…
Russia’s reluctance to integrate

July’s Nato summit in Vilnius was, inevitably and rightly, largely about Ukraine. But covering the event for Monocle Radio’s programme, The Foreign Desk, got me thinking about Lithuania – and about Russia. The summit occurred almost exactly 30 years since my first visit to Lithuania, as a 24-year-old with a backpack. The country had, like Latvia and Estonia, reclaimed its independence just a few years previously, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I liked Vilnius instantly: it was (and is) pretty, friendly and a bit weird. But in 1993, Vilnius was also grimy, fetid and palpably bruised by history. Indeed, the guide who showed me the cells in the former KGB headquarters, now a museum, had once been imprisoned there. I’ve been back a few times since and always found Vilnius cleaner, nicer and happier than on the previous occasion. In the circumstances of this most recent visit, it struck me that Russia could have done this: become an agreeable, collegiate partner to Europe. There was a point at which the country appeared to want this. “I cannot imagine my country in isolation to Europe and what we often call the civilised world,” said Vladimir Putin in 2000. “So it is hard for me to visualise Nato as an enemy.” There was, at one fevered point, talk of Russia joining the alliance.

It is important not to forget that Russia’s line about its assault on Ukraine being a defensive manoeuvre forced upon it is nonsense. For all the designs on Russian territory harboured by anybody in Europe, the country’s western frontier could be defended by a tollbooth. But Russia’s internal reality is just as ridiculous – and just as much a choice. Moscow could have accomplished marvels with the billions of dollars, and thousands of people, it has instead ploughed into the fields of Ukraine in pursuit of some inane grandeur.

Nato and/or the EU should never be romanticised untowardly. But membership of either necessitates and imposes a certain humility. Lingering imperial delusions must be discarded upon entry (the UK’s reluctance to do so entirely is a partial explanation for Brexit). Lithuania had an empire once, or at least a Grand Duchy, which at its peak around the 15th century included a chunk of modern Poland and most of what is now Ukraine. Any modern Lithuanian politician who advocated recovering these territories would be swiftly and correctly assessed as a lunatic. But Russia has chosen not to get the message.

The late, great American satirist PJ O’Rourke, once a guest on The Foreign Desk, reported from the ussr during its death throes. “Lots of countries are poor,” he wrote. “And lots are dreary and oppressive. But the Soviet Union is a huge, healthy nation with more than 20 million college graduates. It has all the land and mineral resources national avarice could imagine. And Russia has been part of – at least an idiot stepsister to – western civilisation for a thousand years. There’s no alibi for the place.”

Little, regrettably, has changed. Russia chose this war – and whatever its consequences might be.

Mueller is the host of Monocle Radio’s ‘The Foreign Desk’.

Top flights

The argument that the presidential jet is a depreciating asset appeared to be validated earlier this year when Mexico sold its presidential Boeing 787 to Tajikistan for $92m (€84m), a $126m (€116m) loss on its 2012 purchase price. Offloading the plane was both a longstanding ambition and characteristically populist stunt of Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who believed it obnoxious and ostentatious – an indulgence, he scoffed as the sale was confirmed, of “little pharaohs”. Amlo is wrong. The plane he has just sold might have overdone the marble bathroom counters and mahogany office furnishings but a dedicated presidential aircraft is both a convenient conveyance and a resonant expression of national prestige. A presidential aircraft taxiing onto a foreign airport apron says not only that your president has arrived but so has your country. Here are three of the best.

From regal to restrained

Just as Air Force One is an airborne incarnation of the US – immense, loud, powerful and unmistakable – so the aircraft of the Lufttransportdienst des Bundes (LTDB), which fly Switzerland’s Federal Council, are modest, quiet, unimposing and stylish. Pride of the ltdb’s fleet is a white Dassault Falcon 900ex, marked “Swiss Air Force” and emblazoned with low-key Swiss flag roundels. While doubtless a comfortable ride for Swiss leaders, it is arguably something of a comedown for the aircraft itself, the previous owner of which was Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Gift of flight

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, can at least argue that his fellow citizens were not obliged to pay for his aircraft: the Boeing 747-8 was a gift in 2018 from the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who was still left with three others to play with. trk1, as it is known when the president is aboard, has been handsomely repainted, its undercarriage swaddled in scarlet, unfurling the crescent moon and star of the Turkish flag on the tailfin.

Flag carrier

Argentina took delivery of a new presidential aircraft in May. The Boeing 757-200, which boasts a paint job suggesting that it has had an Argentinian flag twirled around it, arrived in eye-catching style, making a hair-raisingly low gear-up pass over Aeroparque Internacional Jorge Newbery in Buenos Aires. Argentina acquired the new aircraft in a part-exchange for its long-mothballed predecessor, also a 757. It must be hoped, however, that its occupant will insist on restoring the previous plane’s glorious callsign: Tango 01.

Come on in

There was an air of novelty in 2020 when Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, launched the Welcome Stamp, a visa aimed at allowing foreigners mandated to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic to do so from the Caribbean island. Even though coronavirus restrictions have gone, interest in the visa remains strong.

Of the 5,000 or so people who have applied for the visa, close to 3,000 have been admitted. In response, Barbados’s parliament has extended the scheme twice.

Its success has spurred several other Caribbean countries to follow suit. The Bahamas, Bermuda, Anguilla, Colombia, Dominica and the Cayman Islands are among those to have launched, or enhanced, similar schemes to attract entrepreneurs and remote workers. For countries trying to diversify away from banking, finance and tourism, the schemes have been a boon for local economies.

Nations elsewhere are also tweaking immigration policies to lure workers in specific sectors. In June, Canada launched a visa system for specialists in science and technology, either to find jobs in cities including Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver, or set up on their own. It is a response to cuts in the sector elsewhere.

For smaller countries, the success of these “nomad visas” lies in the breadth of talent they attract. Barbados’s immigration ministry says that entrepreneurs, teachers, agricultural workers, security personnel and healthcare employees have all arrived under its Welcome Stamp. Such visas are still too new for the full impact to be assessed, though the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is among the bodies monitoring their efficacy. In the countries using them, however, there is a stamp of approval.

How Moia’s autonomous vans aim to transform Hamburg’s public transport

An impeccably polished gold-and-black van has pulled up on the street in front of me in Hamburg. At first glance, it looks like an electric Volkswagen Crafter but it’s clearly custom, embossed with “Moia” in white lettering above the grille. As the door slides open, I get in and sit in one of the six seats that feel racing-car-like. With a form that curves around the sides at the top of the seatback for added privacy, they are intended to have a “cocooning” effect. There are also usb ports and wi-fi.

My trip to Hamburg Airport is part of an app-based ride-pooling service offered by Moia, a mobility start-up owned by the Volkswagen group (hence the vehicles), which has been operating in Germany’s second city since April 2019 and Hanover since 2018. Ride pooling – point-to-point travel in which strangers share rides for lower fees, while accepting slight detours plotted by an algorithm as others are picked up and dropped off – is nothing new. But Moia, alongside its City of Hamburg partner, is involved in a huge experiment. The crucial part of the plan is that Moia will switch its human-driven fleet to autonomous vehicles by 2025. It will also scale up from the 300 vehicles it currently operates to at least 5,000 autonomous vans.

“Autonomous vehicles will be a game changer,” says Moia’s CEO, Sascha Meyer. Moia isn’t currently profitable, he admits, as it’s impossible for the company to reach the size it wants to be with human drivers. There’s also the issue of rigid working patterns and what Meyer calls “the challenge of mixing the shift of the driver to the demands of the customers”. For example, there might be a spike in usership on Monday morning but then there’s a big lull, even though a driver’s shift might only be half complete. On my weekday afternoon trip to the airport (€11.20; far cheaper than a taxi), only one other person gets in.

Clearly, Hamburg city hall sees the potential of Moia in pushing the boundaries of both electric and autonomous driving in a premium-feeling way. It already has an ambitious plan in place called Hamburg-Takt, aimed at getting Germans out of their cars and onto public transport. Hamburg-Takt envisions public transport acccess within a five-minute reach of every Hamburger. In order to meet these goals, public transport will need to become a lot more elastic. Which is where Moia comes in. “Public transport [here] is on time,” Anjes Tjarks, senator for transport and mobility transition, tells Monocle. “But it is hard to make the system flexible. And this is an interesting new dimension for public transport.” Moia might be able to cut through from A to B where a train would take a more circuitous route; or offer a suburban or rural service that is responsive to demand rather than continuous.

Wander around Wandsbek, the largest of Moia’s three Hamburg hubs, and you’ll see rows of neatly parked vans outside, many of them hooked up to high-speed Porsche chargers. But it’s an inconspicuous room on the building’s first floor – the service centre – where staff receive a constant stream of data about traffic flow, the position of vehicles, the number of passengers and the state of the battery. Moia might be live but its current phase is clearly part of an endgame as knowledge is acquired. “What we do in Hamburg is for testing; it’s for learning; it’s for creating the product,” says CEO Meyer.

Of course, betting on autonomous technology isn’t without its risks. The technology is still evolving and Moia’s previous partner, Pittsburgh-based Argo AI – backed by both Volkswagen and Ford – announced that it was closing after failing to attract new investors towards the end of last year. But Meyer says that he is “really happy with the first results” of its collaboration with new partner Apex AI. Autonomous vehicles are now being tested on a track in Munich, while vans are going out on Hamburg’s streets with a test driver. A closed group of passengers will be able to hop on an autonomous Moia vehicle next year, ahead of the 2025 switchover.

Though US cities might be ahead of the game in terms of autonomous driving, senator Tjarks believes that Hamburg can be “world leading” because of its focus on a flexi vision of what public transport can be, rather than using it for private cars. Moia’s bold vision wouldn’t have been possible without Hamburg being open to collaboration, formally incorporating the company into its transit network this year. “There are so many people who understand the importance of autonomous driving for the public transport system,” says Meyer. “We get tremendous support and not a lot of push backs.

Ed Stocker is Monocle’s Milan-based Europe editor at large.

Best in show

TV

Arkitekten (The Architect)
Viaplay

Set in a not-so-distant future where drones walk dogs, this Norwegian satirical drama follows young architect Julie (Eili Harboe), who lives in a car-free Oslo and is inspired to turn empty parking blocks into cramped residential accommodation to combat rising house prices and unreachable mortgages. The resulting series is a compelling, if slightly dystopian, visual treat.

Dansegarderoben (Chorus Girls)
Plex

This Danish series explores the 1970s women’s rights movement through the story of eight dancers who take the stage at Copenhagen’s Cirkusrevyen, the biggest revue theatre in the country. Directed and created by Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz, who also star in the series, the programme’s screenplay is based on interviews with real-life performers from that era, exploring the determination and solidarity that formed between them.

Film

Theater Camp
Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman

This mockumentary in the tradition of This is Spinal Tap is a delight for anyone with a penchant for breaking into song. Featuring an ensemble cast that includes Ben Platt, Ayo Edebiri and Amy Sedaris, it’s set during summer in upstate New York, where a group of musical-theatre-leaning kids are at odds with their teachers. When their camp is threatened with closure due to financial issues, they must put on a memorable show to keep it open.

‘Theater Camp’ is released on 25 August

Afire
Christian Petzold

Leon has writer’s block and a bad personality. Thinking that a getaway to the seaside with his photographer friend Felix (also struggling for inspiration) might solve their problems, they instead end up in a complex relationship with unanticipated housemate Nadja. Behind them, a forest fire slowly burns. Petzold’s funniest film, Afire is a deft exploration of the bumpy intersections of creativity, desire and longing.

‘Afire’ is released on 25 August

Past Lives
Celine Song

Playwright Celine Song turns to film to deliver a love story so personal that it becomes universal. Korean émigré Nora randomly reconnects with her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung, rekindling their bond as adults through childlike language and unreliable Skype calls. Song’s film is a meditation on lives lost and gained through emigration, while its melancholic romanticism has made it one of the year’s most talked-about debuts.

‘Past Lives’ is released on 8 September

Art

Ruth Asawa Through Line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Californian sculptor Ruth Asawa treated drawing as more than just preparatory sketches. Studying under Josef Albers at Asheville’s experimental Black Mountain College, she developed a style based on repeating natural motifs. The more than 100 pieces collected here demonstrate crisp line-work as precise and engaging as her trademark wire sculptures.

‘Ruth Asawa Through Line’ runs from 16 September to January 2024

Niko Pirosmani
Fondation Beyeler, Basel

Niko Pirosmani’s work wasn’t intended for gallery walls. Many of his naive portraits and daily scenes were painted in return for food and lodgings. The Georgian folk artist died in 1918, only posthumously gaining favour via a 1969 film and Picasso portrait. This retrospective will further underline his primitive charms.

‘Niko Pirosmani’ runs from 17 September to 28 January 2024

Books

A Wreath for the Enemy
Pamela Frankau

Penelope Wells longs for a normal childhood. While holidaying in the French Riviera, where she is forced to grow up too soon, she steals moments to watch the children nextdoor, who enjoy a playfulness that she never had. The unexpected friendships between these multifaceted characters eventually leads to chaos when their lives inevitably collide.

‘A Wreath for the Enemy’ is out now

Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion
Charlie Porter

Two years ago, Porter gave us What Artists Wear, a sparky account of the clothes sported by modern and contemporary artists. Now the curator and critic is back with a deep dive into the wardrobes of radical 20th-century artists’ collective the Bloomsbury Group. Behind colour choices and hemlines are fascinating insights into their bodies and minds.

‘Bring No Clothes’ is released on 7 September

The Librarianist
Patrick deWitt

Award-winning author DeWitt tells the heartwarming tale of Bob Comet, a retired librarian seeking solace in sedate Portland life. Weaving accounts of wartime bravery, lost romance and the unconventional joys of the everyday, DeWitt celebrates the extraordinary moments nestled within the ordinary with wit and empathy.

‘The Librarianist’ is out now

Pet
Catherine Chidgey

Justine always wanted to be her teacher’s pet. When the crown is hers, she revels in being the chosen one. But as things at the school start to go missing, tension descends on the classroom. Chidgey’s novel soon turns into an exploration of racism, misogyny and oppressive Catholicism, viewed through the microcosm of a school in 1980s New Zealand.

‘Pet’ is out now

The Glutton
AK Blakemore

Set in 18th-century France, the author’s follow-up to The Manningtree Witches tells the strange story of Tarare, a peasant with an insatiable appetite. As he lies in a hospital in Versailles, we learn of his journey from the south of France to Paris. The Revolution is raging and through Tarare’s thrilling travels we witness all the upheaval in a fierce and lyrical tale of desire.

‘The Glutton’ is released on 21 September

Photography

Zoe Leonard: Al río / To the River
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney

The US-Mexico border is defined in part by the Rio Grande river – or Río Bravo, depending on which side you’re on. Zoe Leonard spent six years exploring both banks with her camera, focusing on the communities and complex ecosystems in powerful monochrome images that reveal the starkness of border life.

‘Al río/To the River’ runs until 5 November

Music

João
Bebel Gilberto

João is Bebel Gilberto’s musical love letter to her father, the late Brazilian legend João Gilberto, also known as the father of bossa nova. Drawing from her personal and musical memories, Bebel delivers new interpretations of some of Brazil’s most iconic songs. Her delightful tones work perfectly on famous tracks such as “Ela é Carioca” and “O Pato”, bringing a youthful zest to classic, smooth samba.

‘João’ is out now

Mid Air
Romy

The first solo work by Romy, also a member of popular electronica band The XX, is a euphoric celebration of nightlife and hedonism. A sense of optimism permeates the whole album, culminating in the club-ready “Enjoy Your Life”. Romy was clearly inspired by 2000s pop-dance tracks in songs such as “The Sea”. There’s also a celebratory approach to sexuality and its fluidity in captivating tunes such as “She’s On My Mind”.

‘Mid Air’ is released on 8 September

World of Hassle
Alan Palomo

Using his birth name for the first time instead of the moniker Neon Indian, Mexican-born singer Palomo delivers a confident, lush album. Influenced by the sophisticated pop of Bryan Ferry – plus a healthy dose of Italo-disco – the record brims with originality. From the catchy “The Return of Mickey Milan” to the breezy “Stay-At-Home DJ” and the electropop of “Meutrière”, there’s something to suit all dance floors.

‘World of Hassle’ is released on 15 September

Images: 20th Century Studios/Searchlight Pictures, Tine Harden/TV2, Infinitart Foundation, Sideshow & Janus Films.
Still Life: Tony Hay

On with the show

Last autumn, Iranian news presenter Niusha Saremi’s telephone lit up with a message that contained a photograph. The picture, sent from Iran, was of a billboard stationed along a highway – one of several that were being erected around the country. It read, “Wanted – Dead or Alive” and featured mocked-up mug-shots of five famous television journalists who work for Iran International, the 24-hour news broadcaster launched in London in 2017. Saremi’s portrait was among them.

“They are trying to brainwash people,” says Saremi, speaking from Iran International’s newsroom in Washington, the network’s temporary broadcast hub since February. Her magazine programme Titr-e Avval (The Lead) is about to begin, starting at 12.30 Eastern time, 20.00 in Iran. Among the stories on the line-up today are an investigation into how the cultural wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has been copying popular international television formats – such as talent contest America’s Got Talent – and turning them into pro-government propaganda tools. “They want to make us look like the aggressors,” says Saremi. “We are trying to be a voice for people who have been silenced – the government does not see the media as its friend.”

The billboards began appearing shortly after Tehran named Iran International and other free-to-air outlets, such as BBC Persian and Manoto TV, as terrorist organisations in November 2022. “I try not to think about it; it is a stress and it makes me feel sad,” says Saremi. “Everyone wants to be on a billboard but not like this.”

In February, British counterterrorist officers advised the network that the risk to the channel’s journalists in the UK had become so acute – despite a ramped-up police presence and security fence around the complex – that broadcasts should stop immediately.

“There was no notice at all,” says Mehdi Parpanchi, Iran International’s executive director of operations in the US. The network faced two choices. “Either we had to stop broadcasting entirely or bring everything abroad. The first one was not an option: we couldn’t allow the terrorists to stop us because we knew that their main goal was to shut down the channel.”

Moving an entire news network from one country to another in the space of a weekend – while keeping it on air – was a herculean endeavour. “It was a huge logistical project,” says Aliasghar Ramezanpoor, an Iranian former deputy culture minister and the channel’s executive editor, who is based in London. Ramezanpoor was among the first to be warned by police of an imminent threat to his safety and was advised to relocate to a safe house. He declined to do so. “We were lucky because of the level of courage that our colleagues had.”

Several journalists were eventually flown from London to Washington and the studio’s capability was expanded to allow it to broadcast 24 hours a day. “It happened on a Friday and I was here on Sunday,” says Saremi. “We moved quickly.”

Over the years, Iran International’s journalists have honed ways of reporting on the country that they are in exile from. “I miss a direct connection to my own people,” says Samira Gharaei, a senior correspondent who covers the White House and the US State Department. Some of her recent stories have examined Iran’s drone manufacturing sector, as well as Tehran’s military supply to Russia for its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Gharaei left Iran in her twenties, after her coverage of alleged vote-rigging in the 2008 presidential election made her a target. “My name was on a blacklist,” she says. “Then there were fewer jobs and payments. Life got really difficult. Every Wednesday I needed to go to an office to answer questions. I went in but I didn’t know if I would come out. All of this pressure accumulated and so I decided to leave and pursue another path.”

Reporting on home from abroad is an inherently challenging task. But when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in hospital after being held in police custody last September, being at a distance was an asset. “We were the only main channel to cover the story 24 hours a day,” says executive editor Ramezanpoor, noting the network’s decision to broadcast rolling coverage of the ensuing national demonstrations as women across the country removed and burned their headscarves in protest. “We are not activists, nor were we following a specific political agenda. We were just reporting on what citizens in Iran were saying.”

Members of the public sent the channel more than 1,000 videos, photographs, voice recordings and messages from Iran every day at the height of the demonstrations – material that would have been impossible to broadcast from inside Iran. It was all sifted through, examined and either corroborated or discarded by the news team overseas. “Everyone here is of different ethnicities; we are from different provinces,” says senior correspondent Gharaei. “We had a lot of people talking to friends and families inside Iran and saying, ‘OK, this video is coming from that square, let’s call my auntie and ask if something is really happening.’ But we needed to be extra cautious and careful because one of the Islamic Republic’s tricks is to send you disinformation and then undermine you.”

Being outside Iran also means that the network can report its stories with a depth, scope and perspective that would not otherwise be possible. “It allows us to tap into a more comprehensive network of sources and experts,” says Parpanchi. If a government report on the state of the economy is published in Tehran, the channel’s large roster of commentators fact-check the official version live on air. “Ultimately, our goal is to bridge the information gap for our viewers, to offer a more holistic view of the world around them.”

Examining events from abroad can also help temper the way the network approaches its coverage of events inside Iran. “You can never be numb to any story,” says presenter Fardad Farahzad, shortly after his eponymous weeknight interview show finishes for the evening. “Even though the government is hostile towards you, you still want to be impartial and fair.” Today’s programme includes coverage of the Nato summit in Lithuania as well as an in-depth discussion on the territorial dispute between Iran and the UAE over a cluster of Gulf islands. “Our viewers are looking at us and other broadcasters from the outside to open a window onto what’s actually happening in their own country. But because of the relatively large number of reporters that we have worldwide, we can inform them of what’s happening outside of Iran as well.”

Still, Iran International isn’t immune from scrutiny from other quarters. As a registered company in the UK, it is privately funded and therefore does not generate revenue via commercials. Its primary shareholder is a joint Saudi-British national: this has spurred reporting in the international press that the network’s coverage harbours an agenda that indirectly furthers Saudi Arabia’s long-held hostility towards Tehran. Volant Media, Iran International’s parent company, refutes this. “There is nothing to hide,” says Parpanchi. “To me, what matters as a journalist is not who is funding this news organisation. What matters is whether I am making independent editorial decisions. We are only a stone’s throw from The Washington Post. Is Jeff Bezos interfering in the editorial decisions that it is making? Some of the most prestigious news organisations in the world have bowed to pressure from the Iranian government. The choices that we make here, however, are 100 per cent our decisions.”

White House correspondent Samira Gharaei believes that this editorial line explains the network’s extensive reach inside Iran. “People greatly appreciate how objective we are,” she says. But neutrality doesn’t always evoke praise: her recent coverage of the legal proceedings against Donald Trump spurred several viewers to get in touch. “We have audiences in Iran that like Trump so when we report on him, they don’t like it. But overall, I really think that we are having an effect on Iranian people, and how they think about the news.”

An increased reticence among many Iranian households to admitting to tuning in to the channel (for fear of being placed under surveillance) has made it difficult to ascertain precise viewing figures. But it is estimated that more than 90 per cent of Iranian homes have a satellite dish. Given that the network is broadcast 24 hours a day, on several channels, it makes it almost impossible for the Iranian authorities to jam its signals or to take it off the air for prolonged periods.

Later this year, Iran International is expected to resume its presence in the UK, at a new studio complex in London, which, the network says, will be larger than its previous ones. “Our ambition is to improve the quality of the work that we do with more investigations about what is happening in Iran,” says executive editor Ramezanpoor. “The threats mean that the job that we are doing as journalists is successful. That’s the positive side. It’s an encouraging message for us.”

Hold the phone

When the musician Prince used to perform live, he would have a dedicated security detail on hand to shine a light at any person in the audience who dared to pull out their phone to take pictures. Some comedians now call people out if they catch them sneaking a peek at their screens and occasionally have them read their messages aloud. Many performers have become so frustrated at audiences staring at their phones or videoing them on-stage that they have refused to play.

California-based Yondr offers a low-fi solution to the woes of these performers: a magnetically sealable pouch in which audience members lock away their phones for the duration of the show. Show-goers keep hold of their pouch throughout – so no phone separation anxiety – and these can be unlocked at any time using a Yondr device outside in the foyer, in case they need to make an emergency call.

“It’s very difficult to avoid the solicitations of that thing buzzing in your pocket for three hours,” says Yondr’s founder, Graham Dugoni, when we meet in his company’s peaceful HQ just outside Venice Beach, Los Angeles, which has some cell-phone-free areas. “Phones are designed to capture your attention and draw you in.” Before he was an entrepreneur, Dugoni was a professional soccer player and understands the pressure of having to perform in front of a crowd. He believes that the urge to look at our phone is not an addiction but rather something that’s now hardwired into us, a bodily impulse.

Civil society has also not kept pace with technology, Dugoni explains. It isn’t enough to trust that people will keep their phones in their pockets, so they need a nudge. “That’s one reason why our pouch is grey and very bland,” he says. “It’s there just to set a new ground rule, a new social etiquette.”

Yondr debuted in 2014 and had early adopters such as Chris Rock and Madonna. A mix of comedy clubs, theatres and concert halls now make its pouches a mandatory part of their live experience. Last year the company serviced six million seats worldwide, while its own phone-free music festival, Over Yondr, took place in June in the Catskills Mountains in New York state. The brand has tapped into a growing suspicion that the computer in your pocket is changing how we gather and socialise. Venues say that Yondr can be the difference between an absent-minded audience glancing at their screens or one swept up in a collective experience.

“There’s a complete shift in the attention span of the crowd,” says Lucy Sinsheimer, talent co-ordinator at comedy club Zanies in Nashville, Tennessee, which uses Yondr for almost all of its shows. Comedians tell Sinsheimer that it makes them feel free to try out new stuff, even if it might not bring the house down. “Comics feel much safer on stage knowing that people aren’t going to record the material they’re working on and put it on the internet without their consent,” she says.

This is not just a question of copyright but also one of privacy. Dugoni’s inspiration for Yondr came in 2013 when he saw someone dancing in the crowd at a music festival, unaware that a total stranger was filming them, perhaps with the intention of putting the video online. “These days, we think that smoking on aeroplanes was the craziest thing in the world; to me, this is no different,” he says. “In the future, people will say, ‘Well, of course, you can’t videotape anybody, anywhere, all the time.’” Yondr also kits out US courtrooms seeking greater assurances that jurors can’t surreptitiously communicate or record testimonies on their phones.

“That’s how it came to me that device-free spaces would become a necessity in modern life,” the founder explains. “For a young person, going to school or a party, imagine knowing that something you might do could get recorded and stay online forever.”

About 2,000 schools in the US now use Yondr, as well as a growing number in Europe and Australia. Lennox Middle School, in a tough neighbourhood in Los Angeles, adopted the pouches last year after its 1,300 students returned from lockdowns glued to their phones. “What had once been a minor annoyance meant that we could no longer get our work done,” says principal Lissett Pichardo. It wasn’t just texting in class, it was playground punch-ups on Tiktok and students taking unwanted photographs of faculty members.

Of course, there was fierce resistance – some children tried to crack their pouches open on the desk – and parents also worried that kids would be left helpless without their phones if someone with a gun showed up at the school (a depressingly frequent occurrence in the US). “Any first responder will tell you the last thing they want in that situation is people calling up giving false information, clogging up the airwaves, or parents showing up,” says Pichardo. “But I get it, on a gut level.”

Nevertheless, the principal pressed on and says that the pouches have helped kids get used to not having their phones with them for at least eight hours a day; locking up mobiles has become less necessary as students learn to switch them off and keep them in their bags.

Perhaps, for many of us, the fatigue of being always online will eventually take the sheen off our persistent screen time. Dugoni was encouraged by a recent trend among younger people who covet flip phones that can only make calls and send and receive text messages. “We’re moving back to simpler is better,” he says. American teens are also clamouring after the point-and-shoot digital cameras that were sold in the mid-2000s.

Yondr will release an at-home version of its signature product later this year. It’s a basic beech box that stops phones receiving a signal and keeps them out of sight, out of mind. It can also be locked. The idea is to keep the box in one room of the house, where family members can go to check their phone.

If this all sounds a bit ritualised, then that’s the point. Just as smokers now instinctively know to go outside when they need to light up in public, the way to break the pattern of whipping out your phone at any given moment is to set basic boundaries that become unspoken rules about when it is socially acceptable. As a business, Yondr has had success because it’s helped venues make those boundaries clear and unambiguous for everybody.

Being phone-free won’t make a show great or a dinner party come to life but it can help to keep everyone present and in the room. Dugoni says that he has watched that change come over people after first putting their device in a pouch before a show: their hands initially twitch at their pockets but within minutes they’re drinking and making conversation with other people in the queue. “Those are the little interactions that make up civil society and are, right now, being sliced up by technology,” he says. “If you allow those moments to flourish, while centring the experience around culture, that’s a good recipe.”

Inside the restoration of Alvar Aalto’s Sunila housing estate

Famed mid-century Finnish architect Alvar Aalto believed that people’s lives could be transformed by pairing functionalism – design driven by use and not looks – with humanistic principles. It’s an ethos that he and his wife, Aino Marsio-Aalto, tested with their design of an expansive residential development for the workers of the Sunila pulp mill. On the outskirts of the small city of Kotka, a 90-minute drive from Helsinki, the development was built in the late 1930s with some additional structures added after the Second World War. The project consists of 29 buildings, including terraced houses and detached homes, set in a lush landscape of rocky hills and verdant coniferous forests. For Aalto, who was in his mid-thirties at the time, a mass housing project of this scale was the perfect opportunity to show how his architectural philosophy could transform the lives of ordinary people by providing quality homes en masse.

Despite these lofty ideals, the area fell into disrepair in the latter part of the 20th century. The Sunila mill’s importance to the Finnish pulp industry waned (though it is still operational) and the Aalto homes, originally owned by workers, were sold off. Kotka’s city hall used some of them for social housing, while private citizens purchased others at staggeringly low prices. Sunila had been all but forgotten as an architectural treasure until a recent surge of interest in the area was triggered by a host of design-savvy Helsinkiläiset buying apartments for weekend getaways. These new residents, who include museum directors and high-ranking public servants, have been restoring the interiors to their original state and giving façades gentle nips and tucks. “I just fell head over heels in love with this area,” says Jani Kylmänen, sitting on a vintage Aalto-designed Artek 69 chair in his compact Sunila apartment.

The Helsinki-based property and furniture entrepreneur bought the residence in 2019 as a holiday home. Much of it, including the wooden kitchen cabinets and the foyer coat rack, was in its original state. Kylmänen painstakingly restored the parts of the home that weren’t true to Aalto’s vision to their initial look and feel by exposing original surfaces and commissioning master carpenters to replicate the missing pieces using methods from Aalto’s era. Kylmänen also scoured vintage furniture shops for Aalto items from the 1930s, such as an extendable dinner table made from birch, designed by Aino Marsio-Aalto. There’s even a custom-made bent birch chair that Alvar designed for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, where, coincidentally, Sunila grabbed the world’s attention as a progressive new model for workers’ housing. “It is our duty as residents to uphold Aalto’s legacy and the spirit of this beautiful area,” says Kylmänen. “Without Aalto, this would be just another forgotten suburb in a decaying industrial area.”

Yet in Finland, where the great majority of Aalto’s work is located, the architect’s name does not always invoke the same veneration as it does abroad. This is partly because his buildings are so commonplace (there are more than 400 of them) and partly because many historic and revered neoclassical and art nouveau buildings were torn down to make way for Aalto’s functionalist works. “For a long time, the locals did not want to move to Sunila despite it having some of the cheapest properties in the area,” says Kylmänen. “To some degree, this is still true today. Most people who move in because of Aalto come from other towns and cities.” Kylmänen is involved in the residents’ association, Pro Sunila, whose members meet to promote and look after the area and to exchange ideas about how to renovate their apartments in a way that respects the development’s legacy. “Much of the area was built almost 90 years ago,” he says. “It is not always easy to find the materials and the shades of paint that were used back then.” That sense of community and of taking care of the entire area is important for Kylmänen, who was attracted to Sunila not only by the opportunity to reside in an original Aalto apartment but also by what he calls the development’s “spirit”. “Aalto designed everything here and you can sense his design philosophy wherever you go, from the way that the buildings are placed to follow the forest’s topography to how the surrounding nature interplays with design choices such as the placement of the windows.”

It was the same holistic design approach and legacy that attracted Maija Tanninen- Mattila, the former director of the Helsinki Art Museum, to Sunila in 2021. “When Aalto was commissioned to design the area, he was given a lot of creative freedom to realise his vision for a modern factory area,” she tells monocle while sitting on the large veranda of her 1939 terrace apartment. “I am fascinated by his humanism and his idealism.” Tanninen-Mattila’s summer home is a great example of this: its sharp white contours sit gently in the undulating landscape and it has a timeless boxy form that, if not for the cracking paint and patina of wear, looks like it might have been designed only recently. “It does have that ‘wow’ effect,” she says. “What makes it more special is that the industrial society in the 1930s was very hierarchical, yet Aalto wanted even the workers’ residencies to look great.”

If Kylmänen’s home is a veritable Aalto museum with almost no modern touches, Tanninen-Mattila’s residence combines elements from that era, such as a 1930s wooden club table with Aalto’s signature L-shaped legs, with modern comforts such as kitchen appliances and a shower. “It is my second home and I want it to have that lived-in look,” she says. “But I don’t want it to clash with Aalto’s architectural language.” Tanninen-Mattila, an art historian by training, has stacked her bookshelf with tomes about Aalto and other modernists – not just architects but artists too. She is fascinated by the era. “By moving here and looking after the area, anyone can contribute to nurturing Aalto’s cultural legacy,” she says. Such is her passion for Sunila that Tanninen-Mattila has recently bought another apartment in the area, which she is in the process of renovating. “The responsibility of looking after this place made me even more emotionally attached to it.” It’s an attachment that’s also shared by Laura Aalto (no relation). The longstanding former CEO of Helsinki Marketing, which promoted the Finnish capital to the world, Laura bought an apartment in Sunila with her husband in 2021, almost on a whim.

“We happened to drive by and fell in love with this entire area, its plan and the placement of the buildings,” she says. Used as a holiday home, it is finished with works by contemporary Finnish artists, a modern bookshelf by String and an Akari floor lamp by Isamu Noguchi. They sit alongside vintage Artek furniture from the 1950s, creating a harmonious look that isn’t out of place in the 1937 building, which features thick ceiling beams and round wooden hand railings. “Great architecture stays relevant by adapting to contemporary needs,” says Laura. “The way that light hits the building, and how the transitions from one room to the next are marked, is all part of the enduring magic of Aalto’s architecture.”

She is convinced that the best way to protect noteworthy buildings is to use them – to live in them. And she says that we shouldn’t shy away from adapting them, albeit in ways that do not clash with the original design intent. For Laura and her husband, this meant making the kitchen larger than the original so that they could comfortably cook meals and host guests. “Aalto made homes for people – and people’s needs change,” she says. “I’m convinced that he would have wanted his buildings to evolve over time.” Laura explains that she has developed a strong connection to Sunila, despite living in Helsinki for most of the year. “It’s a wonderful community, very versatile. Our neighbours are comic-book artists, nurses and pensioners – and they have all welcomed us with open arms.” This year the residents of Sunila will also open the doors of their homes to visitors for the annual Alvar Aalto Week, organised by Kotka’s city hall. Artek, the company that Aalto founded and which propelled his furniture design to global fame, is working to restore one of the development’s apartments so it can be used as its showroom during the event. Despite the newfound interest – and the fact that the Finnish government has included Sunila on its list of Aalto works for which it seeks Unesco World Heritage status – there is no hiding the fact that many of Sunila’s Aalto buildings are in poor shape and need a lot of work. But the renaissance has begun. Aalto once famously said that his buildings are never complete but always evolve with the times. Here’s hoping that the continued influx of design-minded individuals to Sunila will prove the famed modernist right.

Little EV, big ambition: how Microlino is rethinking the urban car

Known for its factories and car-repair shops, Turin’s La Loggia neighbourhood is part of the Piedmontese capital’s industrial outskirts. Down one of its side streets is a gated warehouse that’s almost indistinguishable from all the others nearby – except for a minuscule, bright-orange vehicle parked in the forecourt, glinting in the summer sun. Its popping colour and bubble shape make it look like something that you might see in a remake of The Italian Job. But it isn’t a Mini; it’s a Microlino. Soon, Swiss brothers Merlin and Oliver Ouboter – Microlino’s CMO and COO, respectively – are welcoming Monocle inside and showing us around the high-ceilinged buildings.

The twentysomething co-founders are housemates near Küsnacht, where the company is headquartered, but these days they are in La Loggia every week to check on the vehicles rolling off the production line. Turin, with its Fiat heritage and well-established supply chains, makes perfect sense as a place to build these pod cars. So far, Microlino, which bills itself as “born in Switzerland” but “raised in Italy”, has produced 1,400 of them. It is hoping to make 3,500 this year, a number that the brand is planning to double in 2024. “The first strategy isn’t to think how big we want to be but how big the category can be,” says Oliver.

That category – small vehicles designed to squeeze into tight urban spaces – was pioneered by the likes of Germany’s Smart. Microlino is hoping to blow the sector wide open. Technically not even a car, the two-seater is something between a motorbike and an automobile, an electric vehicle (EV) segment that is becoming increasingly popular in European cities, as well as in places such as Israel and Japan. In most European countries, you need a driving licence to operate one but it carries a motorbike number plate. Bizarrely, there’s no legal requirement for it to have a rear-view mirror.

Mini EVs are booming in popularity but their design has sometimes felt like an afterthought. Take the Citroën Ami, probably Microlino’s biggest competitor. It might be good value at about €9,000 but it looks boxy and rather plasticky. The Renault Twizy and Estrima’s Biró, meanwhile, have minimalist chassis that make them resemble moon buggies (the Twizy’s side doors don’t come as standard). Microlino clearly saw a gap in the market.

“We wanted to do something in this small-car category,” says Merlin, as we pass Microlinos being given a final once-over under bright overhead lights. “But none of them looked like a vehicle that I would buy or drive. We thought, if we do this, it has to have some design and lifestyle appeal.”

That’s why fun and sexiness are built into the Microlino’s dna. A sliding fabric sunroof comes as standard and there are about 10 car colours to choose from, ranging from vivacious orange to toned-down and smart dark green. As we wander through the factory, which employs approximately 150 people, an as-yet-unreleased version of a model called the Spiaggina (which literally means “small beach”) catches our eye. It is built for summer: its window glass has been removed on the sides and back to allow for some serious cross-ventilation. The Spiaggina, which comes in baby blue with blue-and-white stripes on the sunroof fabric, looks like the perfect vehicle for zipping to a post-swim aperitivo in Capri.

Microlino offers buyers the option of a two-tone colour scheme, leaving the top half of their EV white with another hue below. If that feels like a nod to the mid-20th century, that’s because it is: the Ouboters acknowledge the bmw Isetta, one of the world’s first bubble cars that burst onto the scene in the 1950s, as a major influence. Indeed, the Microlino borrows the Isetta’s most iconic feature: the front-opening door. “The front door is not just a design joke,” says Merlin. “It has a purpose. You can park very close to other cars and exit onto the pavement.”

Bubble cars might have looked good but they were also a flash in the pan, fading into obscurity almost as quickly as they arrived. So what makes Microlino think that things will be different this time around? Oliver argues that, in the past, buying a small car was simply a stepping stone to being able to afford something bigger. Now, however, people are motivated by questions such as, “How can we use space more efficiently and be more eco-friendly?” In other words, people might actually aspire to own an electric Microlino.

With its price tag of between €16,500 and €23,000 (depending on country and configuration), it isn’t cheap for its size. But it also has a higher-quality finish than many of its competitors, with a unibody chassis made from aluminium and steel, just like a conventional car. And while many similar vehicles can only reach about 45km/h, the Microlino hits 90km/h (monocle verified this; see page 128) with a battery range of up to 230km.

Microlino is part of a much larger Swiss company called Micro. Its CEO is Wim Ouboter, the father of Oliver and Merlin, and something of a legend in urbanism circles. A doyen of micromobility, he invented the much-copied kick scooter in 1999; at its height, it sold about 80,000 a day (the company still shifts more than 1.5 million units a year). Though Ouboter Sr is heavily involved with Microlino, especially when it comes to strategy, the day-to-day running is handled by his two sons.

It has been quite a ride to get to where Microlino is today. The vehicle was launched as a concept at the Geneva International Motor Show in 2016 as a possible way forward for micromobility. But the response to the design was so positive that Micro decided that it should go into production. An ill-fated joint venture, which led to lengthy legal battles, slowed progress; after a settlement was reached in 2020, the Microlino needed a design tweak. That year the company started working with international design firm Icona to produce the Microlino 2.0, as the vehicle rolling off the production line in La Loggia is sometimes called. Headquartered in central Turin, Icona has offices in cities from Shanghai to Los Angeles.

We hop into a convoy of Microlinos (what else?) to make the 20-minute journey downtown to the leafy square where Icona is based. Inside a grand palazzo d’epoca, we are welcomed into a large meeting room, where the windows have been thrown open to allow in the breeze. “The first step in the design process is always to try to go as far as we can,” says Andrea Leoncini, lead exterior designer at Icona. The brief was to update the Microlino; this involved enhancing the curves, changing the dimensions of the pod to make it higher and more spacious, and installing a modern-feeling strip light on the front and rear of the vehicle, among other tweaks.

The vehicle had to be simple because of the limited space – a constraint that required ingenuity from the designers. A bar was placed on the inside of the front door, acting as a dashboard with a touch screen in the middle to control basic car functions. It also has a leather handle at the far end so you can lean forward and shut the door. As well as being a clever design fix, solving many problems at the same time, it’s an intentional reference to the crossbar of a scooter – a way to work mobility baby. “I see many people trying to copy this bar now,” says Icona’s Matteo Pandolfi. “You can even hang objects from it. It has a world of uses.”

The Ouboters have never claimed that Microlino will solve the challenges of urban mobility in the 21st century in one fell swoop. But they do believe that they are building a small electric vehicle fit for urban use that can do many of the things that its much larger, overengineered and gas-guzzling cousins can do. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is easy on the eye but the Microlino seems to be the one thing that everyone can agree on. “People who say that they don’t want any cars on the road are quite open to this category, as are the car fanatics,” says Oliver. “There is common ground.”

On the road

Monocle’s Ed Stocker takes it for a spin.

Press the small button on the side of a Microlino and the front door pops open. When I climb in behind the steering wheel, it somehow feels more spacious than it looks from outside (though it’s a cosy fit once our photographer, Andrea Pugiotto, slides onto the bench seat beside me). It’s a sweltering summer day but there’s no air conditioning, so we open the sunroof and windows for a bit of the hairdryer effect. There’s a screen for the speedometer but that’s as smart as the car gets for now; a phone holder is built into the dashboard. Every vehicle comes with a portable smart speaker, which is a nice touch.

As we set off for central Turin, I notice how well it handles. There’s no power steering, so you’ll need to exert slightly more effort on a three-point turn (if you ever have to do one in a vehicle this small). And, yes, you’ll feel it when you hit a pothole (and there are several heading into Turin). But it has real power and we manage to hit the 90km/h top speed with no feeling of wobbliness (there’s also a nifty “sport” mode that gives you extra va-va-voom for hills). Apart from one petulant child who didn’t seem impressed, the Microlino is also a crowd-pleaser. Men in cars turn to check it out at traffic lights and women tell us, “Che bella!” This isn’t a car and it doesn’t feel like you’re driving one. But who cares? It’s a lot of fun.