Monocle 24: The Urbanist

This week we look at those slightly unusual structures that make you ask: how did that get built and what does it say about the city that hosts it? We cover some very obvious eyesores, peculiar street furniture and divisive buildings challenging all architectural norms and models. Is it time for us to embrace them?

This week we visit the hotel that earned the nickname the “Grand Dame of the Far East”. Our Hong Kong bureau chief James Chambers takes us through the city’s Peninsula Hotel.

It's a brand new year and with it comes change and resolutions – not just for us but for our cities too. We meet Rio de Janeiro’s new mayor, find out why it took nearly 100 years for a new subway extension to be added in New York and see how Vienna is using 2017 to abolish a very unusual tax.

This week we visit one of the most peculiar structures in Lisbon: a building covered with 1,125 diamond-shapes stones.

With more than 100 design weeks around the world, design worshippers are hard-pressed to visit them all. Yet new cities are always being added. So why are so many municipalities trying to link their names with ‘Design’ and what can being a host bring to a city?

Switzerland’s largest city has some of the best transport infrastructure in the world. But what makes it so good and can other cities replicate it? Henry Rees-Sheridan investigates.

We bring you some of the best moments on ‘The Urbanist’ this year, including reports from Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Seattle – and even a chat from the top of a tree.

We bring you highlights from 2016’s ‘Tall Stories’, including a tale of the river Thames, the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial and Singapore’s Cavenagh Bridge.

In a special episode of ‘The Urbanist’, we look at the life and legacy of Jane Jacobs, one of the most influential urban thinkers and city activists of our time.

The RKO Pictures logo once conjured up feelings of anticipation among cinemagoers around the world but today its history is largely relegated to the pages of history books. However, as Monocle’s Ben Rylan learns there are still a few clues left for eager Los Angeles sidewalk explorers to discover as they stroll along Melrose Avenue.

This week we report from the C40 conference where mayors gathered to discuss how to implement positive change in the world. Hop on a boat in Lisbon to talk about how collective action and architecture come together and we unpack the emerging trend of building over transit lines.

As nations around the globe get into the festive season, our Business editor Matt Alagiah takes a look at one of the UK’s most established and deeply symbolic Christmas traditions: the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree.

This week we head to Cairo to talk about how good design has helped the city change for the better, chat with Brazil’s tourism minister Marx Beltrão and catch up with Buenos Aires mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta.

Fernando Augusto Pacheco tells us all about his love affair with swimming pools, from his native São Paulo to his community pool in London's Soho.

The city that is bringing back trains from the late 1950s, an award-winning station with no town and how Austria is aiming to become Europe’s largest night-train operator.