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MONU - magazine on urbanism is a unique bi-annual international forum for artists, writers and designers that are working on topics of urban culture, development and politics. Each issue collects essays, projects and photographs from contributors from all over the world to a given topic. Thus MONU examines topics that are important to the future of our cities and urban regions from a variety of perspectives.

MONU provides a platform for comparative analysis. For example in one of the last issues authors contributed from places as different as Tokyo, Thailand, Detroit, Los Angeles and London. The different viewpoints, contexts and methods of analysis allows to explore topics in a rich fashion. The combination of the writings and projects created in different cultures and with different backgrounds allows to generate new insights in complex phenomena of our cities. For example in the first issue entitled 'Paid Urbanism', essays about the ways European government subsidies and tax policies shape urban form and urban life, gave a great contrast to articles that analyzed farm subsidies and housing policies in the US. Or in the issue #5 on 'Brutal Urbanism' articles from places as Korea, Jerusalem or London all illustrated unique perspectives and reflections on the relationship between violence, upheaval and urban life.

MONU has been recognized already as one of the most innovative and progressive magazines in its field and has been part of an open workspace at the documenta 12 - one of the world's most important exhibitions of modern and contemporary art in summer 2007. MONU was invited by Arch+, a German architectural publication that was organizing the workspace as part of the documenta's magazines project. Recently MONU has been exhibited at places such as Omotesando Hills (Tokyo), Young Art Fair (Basel) and the LA Forum (Los Angeles).

MONU has been founded in 2004 and is directed by editor in chief Bernd Upmeyer together with his Rotterdam based Bureau of Architecture, Research and Design (BOARD) and managed by MONU's managing editor Beatriz Ramo. Bernd Upmeyer studied architecture and urban design at the University of Kassel (Germany) and the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands). In 1999 he was awarded with the prestigious biannual research award "Deutscher Studienpreis" donated by the Koerber Stiftung for a study project about new urban design methods and in 2000 he was awarded with an Architecture Schollarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Before opening his own practice (BOARD) in Rotterdam in the year 2005, he worked in several Dutch architecture offices among others: NL Architects and Bosch Architects. Since 2004 Bernd is teaching and researching as Assistant Professor at the department for Urban and Architectural Studies at the University of Kassel, where he is currently working on his PhD on Transnational Urbanism.


"Combining theory and practice into a diverse, lively, open, and hopeful dialogue, MONU is the new paradigm for journals on urban and architectural thought." (http://jacksoncommunitydesigncenter.blogspot.com/2009/10/monu-11.html)
(October 19, 2009)

"The output of MONU (Magazine on Urbanism) continues to impress, and with issue #11, Bernd Upmeyer and company raise the bar."
(http://infranetlab.org/blog/2009/09/clean-urbanism-dirty-realism/)
(September 8, 2009)

"MONU magazine on urbanism is the sort of journal that catches your eye in the more interesting book shops and seduces you away from whatever it was you went in there for. These journals work by constantly reasserting the value of thinking creatively and in different ways about the world around us."
(http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/neighbourhoods/2008/09/holy-urbanism.html)
(September 29, 2008)


MONU is collaborating with contributors from all over the world. The collaborators of the most recent issues include Samo Pedersen, Matteo Muggianu, Nikonus Pappas, Randall Teal, Jacob Boswell, Nathalie Frankowski, Cruz García, John Southern, Tomorrow’sThoughtsToday, Liam Young, Lee Altman, Greg Keeffe, Simon Swietochowski, OMA, Felipe Correa, Claudio Astudillo Barra, Aleksander Tokarz, Amanda Webb, Rogier van den Berg, Bryan Norwood, The Jackson Community Design Center, Daniel Hadley, Brian A Shabaglian, Colin Davies, NL Architects, Peter Dorsey, Ray Lucas, Speedism, Emeka Udemba, Kees Christiaanse, Elliott Malkin, Jesse LeCavalier, Maurizio Scarciglia, Edward Richardson, Carolyn Sponza, Abha Mahajan, Karen Crequer and Matilde Cassani.

Samo Pedersen is an architect, currently living and working in Berlin. He has a MSc in urban design from Bauhaus University, Weimar, and Tongji University, Shanghai. Matteo Muggianu graduated in Architectural Enginering from the Facoltà di Ingegneria di Cagliari, Italy. After that he followed a master degree in Urban Management and Architectural Design at Domus Academy in Milan, where he lives and works at the moment. Nikonus Pappas is graduated from the Architecture University of Adelaide, South Australia 2008. He has also studied at La Sapienza University, Rome. Randall Teal is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Idaho. His pedagogical and research interests are in design fundamentals and architectural theory with a significant influence from Continental thought. Jacob Boswell holds masters degrees in both City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio as well as an undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology. Gerd Hauser is the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Germany that deals with research, development, testing, demonstration and consulting in the fields of building physics and holder of the Chair of Building Physics at the Technical University of Munich. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerd Hauser is one of the leading researchers for the implementation of the EU Directive on “Energy Performance of Buildings”. Nathalie Frankowski is a French architect graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette (ENSAPLV) and Co-Founder of WAI (What About It?) A Contemporary Think Tank for Architecture and the City Cruz García is a Puerto Rican architect graduated from the Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Puerto Rico and Co-Founder of WAI. WAI (What About It?) is a Contemporary Think Tank for Architecture and the City based in Amsterdam. John Southern is the director of Urban Operations, a research and design studio based in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake. He teaches architectural theory as well as design studio at Woodbury University in Los Angeles, California. Tomorrow’sThoughtsToday is a London-based think tank exploring the consequences of fantastic, perverse and underrated urbanisms. Darryl Chen is an architect, critic and practitioner on urbanism for a range of publications, schools and private practices. Liam Young currently lives and works in London. After working for Zaha Hadid Architects and LAB Architecture Studio he is now an independent designer and critic. Lee Altman is an architect and urban designer based in NYC. She attended the Israel Institute of Technology, the Politecnico di Milano and Columbia University GSAPP where she received her Masters of Science in Architecture and Urban Design. Greg Keeffe is Downing Professor of Sustainable Architecture, Leeds School of Architecture, Leeds. He is originally trained as an engineer and has 25 years experience in sustainability, energy use and its impact on the design of built form and urban space. develops a model of a new city, as an econose, of mutually compatible functional elements. Simon Swietochowski is a Research Student at Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester UK. OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) is a Rotterdam based leading international partnership practicing contemporary architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. Felipe Correa is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is an architect and founder of Somatic Collaborative, a research based design practice, which focuses on a speculative approach to architecture and urbanism, and engages a wide host of material geographies and design procedures. Claudio Astudillo Barra is a Chilean architect who studied at the Santa María University’s School of Architecture in the city of Valparaiso, Chile. He is editor of Criptonita team and member of Bangs! Aleksander Tokarz graduated with a Bachelors of Architecture from California College of the Arts. Currently he is working as a project manager at an architectural firm in Stuttgart, Germany. Amanda Webb is an environmental designer in the San Francisco office of Atelier Ten, an environmental design, mechanical engineering and lighting design firm. She received her degree in architecture and philosophy from Yale University. Rogier van den Berg is founding partner of Zandbelt&vandenBerg, office for architecture and urban design in Rotterdam and head of the Department of Urbanism at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. Bryan Norwood is a recent graduate of Mississippi State University and currently a graduate student in the philosophy Ph.D. program at Boston University. His current research at the Jackson Community Design Center is on the intersection of poststructuralism and urbanism, and in particular its connection to mid-size metropolitan areas. The Jackson Community Design Center is an urban think tank based out of the Mississippi State University College of Architecture, Art, and Design. Daniel Hadley graduated from the Harvard Divinity School in 2008 with a Masters in Theological Studies, and is currently working on a Masters in Urban Planning at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Brian A Shabaglian is an artist currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Colin Davies is a writer and the founder and co-editor of the website Limited Language that uses the web as a platform for generating writing about visual communication. NL Architects is an Amsterdam based office. The principals, Pieter Bannenberg, Walter van Dijk and Kamiel Klaasse, officially opened practice in January 1997, but had shared workspace already since the early nineties. Peter Dorsey practices and teaches architecture in New York and Bahrain. Ray Lucas has a PhD in Social Anthropology and has conducted research in the fields of architecture, representation, sensory perception, sound design, cinema, and is currently working at the Departments of Architecture and Geography at the University of Edinburgh. Speedism is the duo Julian Friedauer, Germany, and Pieterjan Ginckels, Belgium. They work in the fields of architecture, architectural theory, visual arts, visual theory, urban tactics, imagineering, visual arts and scriptwriting. Emeka Udemba is an artist from Nigeria. He is also involved in curatorial practices. He lives and works presently in Germany. Kees Christiaanse is an architect and founder of KCAP Architects and Planners in Rotterdam, Zurich and London. Since 1996 he has been professor in architecture and urban design, first at the Technical University –in Berlin, and beginning in 2003 at Network City Landscape at the ETH Zurich. Elliott Malkin is an artist, filmmaker, and information architect in New York City. He is the inventor of the laser eruv. Jesse LeCavalier holds degrees from Brown University and from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich where he is also involved in teaching and research activities. Maurizio Scarciglia is an architect and the founder of NAUTA, a Rotterdam based office that focuses on architecture and urban planning. Before opening his own office, he worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Since 2006 he is teaching and researching at Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft. Edward Richardson is a native of New Orleans and has practiced architecture in Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Texas. He studied architecture at both Yale University, and has taught as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas and University of New Mexico. Carolyn Sponza is an architect practicing in New York City. Abha Mahajan is a practicing architect based in India, with varied interests including painting and writing. She has been involved in research projects and is an urban Designer from S. P.A., New Delhi. Karen Crequer lives and works in Paris. She examines themes surrounding psychoanalysis and architecture. She has worked on a diversity of projects in some leading international firms such as the Serpentine Pavillon of Rem Koolhaas. Matilde Cassani lives and works between Milano and Barcelona. She has a degree in architecture at Politecinco di Milano and a post graduation degree at UPC in Barcelona. She currently works as an architect and researcher in Milano with Boeri studio.