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24-01-12 // DO WE SIMPLY HAVE TO STOP HAVING SEX...?




In August 2009 the editorial of MONU #11 on the topic of "Clean Urbanism" started with the lines "Do we simply have to stop having sex to produce Clean Urbanism - i.e. an urbanism that is dedicated to minimizing both the required inputs of energy, water, and food for a city as well as its waste output of heat, air pollution as CO2, methan, and water pollution, Samo Pedersen asks in his piece “Sci-fi greenery..or just Responsibility?”. In fact Randall Teal sees the growing world population frequently ignored in discussions on sustainability, as he points out in his article “Coming Clean: Owning Up to the Real Demands of a Sustainable Existence”. Fewer people spend less energy, and as the gas and oil supply will come to an end sooner or later, saving energy may be a cheaper and smarter solution for cities than depending on renewable energies, as Gerd Hauser, one of the leading researchers on the implementation of the EU Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings, explains in an interview with us, entitled “Domes over Manhatten”..."

These lines are now featured on a bag designed and produced by MONU Magazine. The bags were produced in a limited edition of 50 pieces. To get a single bag for €10,00 + shipping (NL €1,50; EU €2,55; WORLD €2,85) please e-mail your order to bag@monu-magazine.com . You will receive instructions and invoice through Paypal by e-mail. If you prefer to pay without PayPal, please let us know.


16-01-12 // MONU IN ARCHIZINES CATALOGUE



MONU is featured in the Archizines Catalogue published by Bedford Press and edited by Elias Redstone. This catalogue, accompanying an exhibition curated by Elias Redstone for the Architectural Association, explores the relationship between architecture and publishing. Themes addressed in a series of new essays include the role of publishing in academia and architectural practice, and the representation of architecture in fictional writing, photography, magazines and fanzine culture.


02-01-12 // MONU MAGAZINE AVAILABLE IN INDIA



After already being available in bookshops in Europe, Australia, and North America,
MONU Magazine is now available in Asia too. As of today, all available issues of MONU can be purchased at Mumbai's Art & Design Book Store. An almost complete list of bookshops that carry MONU can be found in Order (scroll down).


22-12-11 // INTERVIEW WITH BERND UPMEYER AT ARCHIZINES EXHIBITION



Curator Elias Redstone interviewed MONU's editor-in-chief Bernd Upmeyer for the Archizines Exhibition at London's Architectural Association. The answers were screened at the exhibition.

Elias Redstone: What is the relationship between architecture and publishing?
Bernd Upmeyer: To a certain extent, both architecture and publishing can be understood as processes of information production. Yet, neither architecture nor publishing should be completely reduced to the production of information. However, when I started publishing MONU magazine around seven years ago, after having been trained first and foremost as an architect, the first printed issue of MONU became in a way my first fully realized, or to put it more correctly, my first fully built project under my own name. In this way, and from my point of view, publishing and architecture were very closely related. Nevertheless, in my experience, the production of architecture is a much more active and narcissistic process, whilst the production of a publication is far more passive, more mediating and collaborative.

ER: How do you ‘edit’ architecture?
Bernd Upmeyer: MONU magazine is first of all a magazine on urbanism that focuses on cities in a broader sense, including their politics, economies, geographies, their social aspects, but also their physical structures, the point where architecture comes into play. In that sense architecture is only one field of many in the magazine - fields which are all brought together under the umbrella term urbanism. When editing the magazine, I of course always try to select those contributions that are most relevant for the chosen topic for the particular issue in order to come to conclusions regarding the problem under discussion. But what I find actually more interesting about the question “how I edit architecture” is the impact that MONU can have on cities and thus on the built environment - the architecture. Because I believe that by putting certain topics on the agenda, the magazine is actually able to modify and even correct, and therefore “edit”, architecture by changing and manipulating the views and perspectives of its readers in a positive way, which will eventually also influence the built environments in our cities.

ER: What is the role of printed matter in the digital age?
Bernd Upmeyer: I think that the role of printed matter in the digital age is very much related to the costly, complicated and time-consuming way in which printed publications are produced and distributed. Everybody who has ever produced a printed publication knows what I am talking about. Even if you simply print your magazine on an ink-jet printer in your kitchen and staple it together by yourself, it still remains so much harder to do than publishing something online. And once you have made that kind of effort, you are not going to waste it on low-quality information. That fact alone secures a certain quality among printed publications. Furthermore, I believe that a certain fascination with “materiality”, with real and physical objects will never entirely disappear. Although MONU magazine is already available digitally as well, I could not imagine producing it only digitally at this moment. The idea that a magazine can be a physical object of art and not only a transmitter of information always appealed to me.

ER: How are architectural publications changing?
Bernd Upmeyer: I would be tempted to say that the increased accessibility and availability of information and the easier connectivity between people that the internet provides today, can only be judged positively. But whether it works for you as an advantage or disadvantage depends on your approach. The whole situation offers both: great opportunities, but also great dangers of misuse. Because what I see is that, especially over the last ten years, the situation has impacted and changed architectural publications in a lot of negative ways. The reality that producing a magazine became so much easier and faster than twenty years ago, resulted in the fact that today the shelves of bookshops, but also a huge number of internet websites, are groaning under the weight of an ever-growing stack of rather uncritical, low-quality and image-oriented architectural publications that will eventually hollow out the entire architectural profession.



19-12-11 // ACROBATIC NARRATIVES



Excerpts from the interview (MONU #15 ) with Wouter Vanstiphout - member of Crimson Architectural Historians in Rotterdam and professor of Design and Politics at the Faculty of Architecture of Delft Technical University.

Beatriz Ramo: We would like to discuss with you some delicate issues around the current understanding of ideology, or better, the flexibility and malleability that “ideology” has been put through until becoming a brand. From general, large-scale city strategies to much smaller interventions in Rotterdam, examples of success as branding operations but questionable in the transparency and honesty of its message, which is heavily loaded with rhetoric about the public, the social, the participatory, the creative…etc. We are confronted by plenty of these ideologies which turn into highly hypocritical and unethical promotional strategies. How does one judge that? Would you be able to justify them?

Wouter Vanstiphout: What I find is that it is difficult to distinguish between authentic social or ecological motivations, and motivations that are used as window dressing or smokescreens for something else. Today, even the most hard-nosed developer, corporate architect or neoliberal politician uses language of community and sustainability to the extent that there is nothing on the surface you can disagree with. (…)

BR: We see more and more groups and collectives that call themselves ‘activists’ whose manifestoes lay in the social, urban participation, social action, etc. Although conceived with the best of intentions, often the results of their actions are closer to a celebration of themselves as the protagonists of their activism rather than a committed action with a serious outcome. What do you think about this urban activism displayed all around Europe?

WV: There are offices that do it in an authentic way, out of a real feeling of anger or commitment… and that is fantastic. And there are many offices that are exactly as you said… There is a change in the cliché of the figure of the architect. Twenty years ago the cliché was a bit Spanish-looking: cultured, qualitative, formalist, intellectual…And then Rem [Koolhaas] came and the architect became this ruthless robot man, destroying everything we found comfortable; being awful to everyone… And everybody copied that model, from Ben van Berkel to every single Swiss architect in the world under 50.
But now we have this third model: Alejandro Aravena, Alfredo Brillembourg, Alexander Vollebregt, my colleague from Delft, switching easily from Haitian slums to Lecture rooms, perfectly comfortable with UN Habitat and Worldbank bureaucrats, dressing with a certain hippie-chic, adored by their students for their empathy, approachability and enthusiasm, and most of all breathlessly admired for their willingness to talk about helping the world, eradicating poverty, emancipating the poor. (…)

BR: What I find distressing is how these architects or their actions are being used by authorities or institutions; like marriages of convenience. This profile: young + fresh + social activist has been fully institutionalized. (…)

WV: (…) This strange lightness of these groups of architects is not really dangerous for society, it’s just useless for society… it is just dangerous for themselves. That is why I am so fascinated with what many young offices are doing, will they succumb to the comfort zone of the creative industry deal, providing lightweight actions, that are really just designer objects, or will they find their own position, their own discourse, shed their roles of bad boys and girls in designer magazines and developer boardrooms?

(…)
Bernd Upmeyer: In this a-critical moment, do these tricky and popular “ideologies” offer a great chance to designers and urban planners, who in the name of the social or the green can act with more freedom?

WVS: Yes, but look at the roots of the a-critical attitude of present-day architects. Don’t you agree that the preachings of Rem Koolhaas of the early 1990s, against a critical attitude towards the mega-urbanization in Asia, was a pioneering moment in this a-critical attitude? Critics of the autocratic regimes in Singapore, China, later the Arab states, were being castigated and silenced for being arrogant and neo-colonial. I always found this an exasperating rhetorical trick; especially because you could not help thinking that it was self-serving, because the direction of this a-criticality always moved in the same direction as the offices portfolio. So you always got the feeling, that not the country’s government was being shielded, but the ethics of the office itself. (…)

BU: With what kind of urban ideologies do you think we are dealing at the moment? How do they relate to urban ideologies of the past?

WV: I continuously go back to 1980s and 1990s. Embracing monster capitalist machines was kind of sexy, attractive. Today cities are looked at as products that have to compete on a global level and they are manipulated by people that operate at that global level, from the outside. I started losing my belief in this metropolitanism. (…)

BU: Once we accept the failure and impossibility of true ideologies, how do you see the tendency of borrowing the esthetics and imagery of brilliant past ideologies and stripping them from their meaning and turning them into current dogmas?

BR: For example, the fascination with the images from Superstudio’s Monumento Continuo, which were made to fiercely criticize capitalism, globalization, and the last Modern Movement of the sixties, but now these images are taken almost as real architecture proposals because of their striking beauty and monumentality. Isn’t it a little awkward the usage of images without regard their initial meaning?

WsV: I agree with this. But I even think that there is something more desperate about it. What you see is that ideology has become esthetics itself. It is something that you can buy into …(…)

You also see this with some of the neo-neorationalist architectural hypes being taught at the AA, Harvard, and the Berlage Institute, this armchair flirting with communism and socialism, without any real political engagement. Within the world of architecture, dead and buried ideologies are being used as designer objects, attributes or talisman, that get you access to tenure tracks, magazines and conferences.

I find it extremely perverse because it creates this jargon problem, this extremely incomprehensible elitist language. The language of architecture theory has becomes so convoluted, so obtuse, so…. That even the dumbest person can use it, because it just does not make any sense anyway. (…)



08-12-11 // ARTIST NO MORE



MONU's editor-in-chief Bernd Upmeyer has been interviewed by the Milan-based magazine "STUDIO".

STUDIO: Officially today we live in an urbanized world. More than 50% of humanity live in urban contexts. Is this the age of urbanity or the age of the crises complexity?
Bernd Upmeyer: If you ask me like that I would rather say that it is the age of urbanity, because crises always happened. It is not that we are just now having a lot of crises and we never had them before. But I also don't see exactly the relation between the age of urbanity and the crises we are facing at moment. First of all you have to define what kind of crises you're talking about. Today we are dealing for example with three main crises: the financial crisis, the climate crisis, but also the geo-political crisis.

STUDIO: So this is not an urban topic?
BU: That depends on what crisis you are talking about. The current financial crisis, for example, has of course an impact on cities, but cities did not produce the financial crisis to begin with. If you wish to talk about the relation of the climate crisis to cities, then you can of course also say that the recent enormous population growths of cities did not make the situation easier. However, we can speak of an urban age, mainly because of the vast movements of people from the countryside to the cities, which happened especially in Asia - a tendency that does not happen so much in the Western world, where cities are rather shrinking.

...continue reading the entire interview here.


30-11-11 // MONU AT MELANCHOTOPIA



MONU Magazine is currently part of the Melanchotopia exhibition at Rotterdam's Witte de With Gallery. For the duration of Melanchotopia, Witte de With is home to Pro qm from Berlin. Their owners have curated a special selection of titles to further explore the themes of Melanchotopia and include these together with books of the artists represented in the exhibition.

Melanchotopia is an exhibition that invites more than forty international artists to work with different venues in the city-center of Rotterdam – places where people live and work – and to activate their potential as spaces for ideas, discourse and invention. From large-scale interventions to very simple gestures, Melanchotopia supports a range of artistic practices that go beyond the classical approach to displaying art in public space. Working with the existing dynamics of the city, Witte de With’s intention is to bring forward the diverse layers of daily life in Rotterdam, creating a rich framework for subjective encounters. It is an exhibition about the reality of Rotterdam. Today, Rotterdam seems to be on hold between its past and its future: filled with nostalgia for the pre-WWII city and in wait for the utopian future, which is perpetually stalled in unfinished developments and reconstructions. Projections about yesterday and tomorrow drive the image of the city, that seems to lack a present. Melanchotopia performs the present of the city through the specific practice of each artist. Over the course of the exhibition (and remaining active until 31 December 2011) Witte de With’s galleries is reconfigured to become the epicenter of Melanchotopia. The projects, which spread throughout Rotterdam’s center, are brought together via a graphic mapping. Several art works and installations are also on show inside the epicenter and it is the site for numerous events. (description from Witte de With's website)


21-11-11 // MONU #15 ON POST-IDEOLOGICAL URBANISM RELEASED



This new MONU issue on the topic of Post-Ideological Urbanism probably touches on one of the most fascinating and biggest issues of our time and in our culture, or what is left of it: the non-ideological - or better post-ideological - conditions of our society when it comes to cities. Today, ideology appears to have become, and to have been reduced to, something merely aesthetic, something you can buy yourself into as Wouter Vanstiphout explains in an interview with us entitled "Acrobatic Narratives". In that sense cities have become suspicious territories where hypocrisy and fakery prevail when it comes to urban ideologies and one wishes to have some kind of optical device that detects all the lies, similar to a kind of night vision infrared technology that Thomas Ruff used in his "Nacht Series" applying the same technology that was used during the Gulf War...continue reading in Issues.

To get a printed copy of this new issue, please e-mail your order to order@monu-magazine.com. The digital version can be downloaded on iTunes and Pocket Mags...more information can be found in Order .


07-11-11 // ARCHIZINES EXHIBITION OPENED IN LONDON



The ARCHIZINES exhibition opened successfully on 5 November in the Front Members' Room at the AA School, 36 Bedford Square, London. The exhibition features MONU's issue #14 together with 59 other international magazines and runs until 14 December 2011.

MONU #14 is the most recent issue of the magazine, which illustrates very well where we stand at the moment. It displays its mature status and its achievement in surviving and prospering over the years. This issue is important because it shows how the magazine has developed since its foundation more than seven years ago from a very small, stapled together, black and white publication to one of the most relevant and one of the main independent publications focused exclusively on urbanism. Ever since the summer of 2004, when MONU's first issue on the topic of "Paid Urbanism" appeared, two issues were released regularly every year. This current issue of MONU shows more than ever that even in market-driven and post-critical times, a non-conformist niche publication such as MONU magazine, that collects critical articles, images, concepts, and urban theories from architects, urbanists and theorists from around the world, can exist and find its place of pride without bowing to "market forces". (Bernd Upmeyer's answer to Archizine's question "Why this issue is important and why it was selected for the exhibition?")

(Image 1+2: Valerie Bennett; Image 3: Sue Barr)


01-11-11 // NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR MONU #16 - NON-URBANISM



(Image: "Jeffrey returns to his home town from College to visit his father in hospital. On his way back from the hospital he happens to find a severed ear in the overgrown fields behind his home." Blue Velvet (1986), David Lynch. @De Laurentiis Entertainment Group)

Some six years ago and in one of our first issues - MONU #4 - one of the contributors explained "how suburbs destroy democracy" when people live in high degree of residential and cultural isolation and individualism. By that time he could not have forecasted that...continue reading in Submit.


28-09-11 // MONU #14 AT FUTUR CULTUR FESTIVAL IN TOKYO




During the summer MONU's issue #14 has been exhibited in Tokyo as part of the Futur Cultur Festival. The event was dedicated to those in the Tohoku region who lost their homes in the aftermath of the march 11th earthquake and tsunami. A short video of the event can be found on vimeo and a photo report on Designboom.


14-09-11 // MONU AT THE AA IN LONDON



The Architectural Association in London is hosting an ARCHIZINES exhibition in London from 5 November to 14 December 2011. MONU will be showcased together with 59 other architectural magazines, fanzines and journals from 20 countries around the world and include video interviews with their creators.

Launched by Elias Redstone as an online research project in January 2011, with art direction by Folch Studio, Archizines celebrates and promotes a recent resurgence of alternative and independent architectural publishing. From the photocopied newsletter to beautifully bound magazines, each fanzine is a creative platform for the subject and the author. Together they provide a rich and unique window into how people relate to the spaces we inhabit. Across the world, publications are cultivating architectural commentary, criticism and research. Bucking the current trend for digital media, architects, artists and academics are producing printed matter that adds a dynamic, and often radical, voice to architectural discourse. Each magazine will be on show, while their authors will be represented in video interviews talking about their work.



08-07-11 // MONU #7 REPRINTED



After being sold out for about three years, MONU #7 on the topic of 2nd Rate Urbanism has been reprinted and is now available. To give a few examples, MONU #7 featured an interview with Floris Alkemade/OMA entitled "Dumped in Almere"; "I ROTterdam" by Charles Bessard and Nanne de Ru/ Powerhouse Company; and the "The Re-Creation of the European City" by Beatriz Ramo/ STAR. Browse the entire reprinted issue #7 on YouTube here.

In an increasingly connected world the economic realities are precarious for most 2nd rate cities. In the competition for jobs and an ever expanding tax base, 2nd rate cities are in a squeeze between the suburbs where land is even cheaper and even more accessible by car on the one side, and the real attractive 1st rate urban areas that draw the highly educated and the creative on the other side. And since planning ‘down’ to a suburb is not an option that is considered by most cities, the fight for the survival of 2nd rate cities is to attract more urban assets...continue reading here.


07-06-11 // MONU IS AVAILABLE DIGITALLY

As of today, MONU Magazine on Urbanism is available digitally as an IPAD Application for Magazines using Apples' iPad, iPhone and MAC products. At the moment the available issues include MONU #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, and #13. They can be downloaded on iTunes and Pocket Mags.


17-05-11 // MONU #13 IS EXHIBITED IN PRAGUE



MONU's issue #13 is currently exhibited at the Czech Design Gallery in Prague. The exhibition is entitled "We are closing in 21 days" and runs from May 9 until May 30, 2011. The event is organized by Oldschool
- a group project of three designers from Prague working in the field of visual communication, graphic design and fashion. The aim of the event is, apart from presenting fashion, to introduce foreign independent publishing to a wider czech audience.


02-05-11 // NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR MONU #15 - POST-IDEOLOGICAL URBANISM



Today we find ourselves in a jealous mood, yet at the same time disillusioned, looking back to the times when revolutionary urban ideologies were not only conceived but actually, unlike today, also truly believed in. Just think about the passionate ideas of the Situationist International, ...read the rest of the new call for submissions in Submit (Image: Dexter, ready to kill. ©Showtime)


18-04-11 // MONU #14 - EDITING URBANISM RELEASED


Despite the current urgency to deal with the enormous potential of the already existing urban material as Urban Editors, there seems still to be an enormous lack of interest in topics such as urban and architectural restoration, preservation, renovation, redevelopment, renewal or adaptive reuse of old structures among architects and urban designers. But ignorance in this matter can only be dismissed as socially irresponsible and economically and culturally unacceptable. But what might be the reason for the prevailing ignorance? Who is to blame? Why is Urban Editing considered to be so utterly unattractive?...continue reading here


12-04-11 // MONU AT MILAN DESIGN WEEK



MONU magazine will be exhibited and presented at the Milan Design Week 2011 from April 12 - 17. Bernd Upmeyer will speak about MONU on Friday, April 15 at 6pm at the Chiedi alla Polvere, via Cola Montano 24, Milan. MONU will be part of the Green Island. (Image: Vessel One by Adam Farlie, photo ©Adam Farlie, Milan Design Week 2009)


21-03-11 // MONU IS EXHIBITED IN ARANJUEZ, SPAIN



MONU is exhibited in the Espacio para el Arte y la Cultura (Espacio para el Arte y la Cultura, C/ San Antonio, 49, 28300 Aranjuez, Spain) in Aranjuez, a town located 48km south of Madrid. The exhibition opens on March 22 at 19:00 with a music session by the Sindicalistas / Autoplacer and runs until May 22, 2011.


01-03-11 // MONU WILL BE PRESENTED AT BASEL'S YOUNG ART FAIR



MONU will be presented at Basel's Young Art Fair entitled LISTE from June 14 - 19, 2011.
LISTE is the discoverer fair for young galleries and young art. Every year since its opening in 1996, the LISTE has presented new and important galleries and highly contemporary young art. The LISTE's concept of introducing galleries in general no more than 5 years old and artists under 40 has been at the heart of its being one of the most important fairs for young art and still being considered one of the art world’s most important discoverer fair. (Image 1and 3: Daniel Spehr, photographer; Image 2: Courtesy LABOR, Mexico D.F)


14-02-11 // SUCCESSFUL MOST VALUABLE URBANISM DEBATE



MONU's Most Valuable Urbanism Debate was a great success. The main statements of the presentations and the debate of Piet Vollaard, Floris Alkemade, Jaap van den Bout, Adriaan Geuze and MONU's editor in chief Bernd Upmeyer will be published in MONU's coming issue on the topic of "Editing Urbanism" by the beginning of April.


09-02-11 // MONU #11 REPRINTED

After being sold out for a couple of months, MONU #11 on Clean Urbanism has been reprinted and is available again. To get a single printed copy of MONU #11, please e-mail your order to publishers@b-o-a-r-d.nl.

Do we simply have to stop having sex to produce Clean Urbanism - i.e. an urbanism that is dedicated to minimizing both the required inputs of energy, water, and food for a city as well as its waste output of heat, air pollution as CO2, methan, and water pollution, Samo Pedersen asks in his piece “Sci-fi greenery..or just Responsibility?”...


04-02-11 // MONU MAGAZINE IS DISPLAYED AT ARCHIZINES



ARCHI ZINES is a showcase of new fanzines, journals and magazines from around the world that provide an alternative discourse to the established architectural press. Launched by Elias Redstone, with art direction by Folch Studio, the project celebrates and promotes publishing as an arena for architectural commentary, criticism and research, and as a creative platform for new photography, illustration and design.

Alternative and independent publishing has had a dynamic and important relationship with architecture over the years, with prolific moments in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. A recent resurgence has seen new titles emerging in many countries, from Argentina, Belgium and Chile to the UK and USA. ARCHI ZINES brings together this international collection of publications for the first time as an important resource for architects, designers, critics, photographers and anyone interested in discussing the buildings and spaces we inhabit.

ARCHI ZINES is an expanding archive of the best publications from 2000s to the latest releases, and is growing as new titles and issues are acquired. The publications themselves vary in style (from photocopied zines to professionally printed and bound magazines) and content (from architectural research to personal narratives about buildings and cities). The commonality is a shared interest in documenting and discussing the spaces we occupy in ways that more mainstream or professional publications do not. As well as adding to architectural discourse, they are lovingly made objects to hold and to keep.


24-01-11 // MONU IS EXHIBITED AT THE "ESPACIO PARA EL ARTE" IN ZARAGOZA



After the success of the "De Zines" exhibition at "la casa encendida" in Madrid, Spain, the show opens its doors again in Zaragoza in the "Espacio para el Arte". More than 400 independent international publications (magazines, fanzines, artbooks and others) will be shown. The opening will be on Tuesday, January 25 at 19:00. The exhibition will run until March 13.


03-01-11 // MOST VALUABLE URBANISM DEBATE



MONU - magazine on urbanism is organizing a public debate on the topic of its last issue: MONU #13 - Most Valuable Urbanism on Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in "De Machinist" in Rotterdam.

The debate will be moderated by Piet Vollaard and the panel will include four people with four different ideological backgrounds in order to discuss the topic in a rich and diverse way and to provoke a lively and productive clash of ideas and opinions. The panel members are: Floris Alkemade, Ashok Bhalotra, Jaap van den Bout, and Adriaan Geuze. The entire event will be in English.

The topic "Most Valuable Urbanism" will be used as the starting point for the debate, but with a focus on the Dutch context and Dutch cities. The aim of the debate is to discuss the topic "Most Valuable Urbanism" among the Dutch public and to critically reflect on traditional Dutch city values. The main questions of the debate will be:
What is a good and what is a bad city? How should we evaluate cities in this day and age? Which city might be the most valuable, producing the most valuable urbanism and what kind of criteria should be applied to define valuable urbanism? What role do architects and urban designers play in the production of valuable urbanism?

Location:
De Machinist
Willem Buytewechstraat 45
3024 BK Rotterdam

Date:
10.02.2011, 7:00 p.m.

Tickets:
The debate is sold out


13-12-10 // MONU IS SHOWCASED IN A NEWLY LAUNCHED DIGITAL LIBRARY FOR INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS



MONU has been invited to be part of the collection of the newly launched digital library No Layout . No Layout is an online library for independent publishers, focusing on art books and fashion magazines. It is meant as a support for printed publications, allowing users to flip through full content on any screen without downloads or apps. A promotional and archive tool.

Three issues of MONU are currently showcased: MONU #5 - Brutal Urbanism; MONU #10 - Holy Urbanism; and MONU #12 - Real Urbanism. The following articles are fully readable on any screen for free:

#5: The Return of the Repressed by Loïc Wacquant; The Evil Architects Do by Eyal Weizman; Preventing Brutal Urbanism - Interview with the Director of the Security Task Force for the 2006 World Cup by Bernd Upmeyer; Terrorists Love Density by STAR
#10: The Sacred and the Holy: Transient Urban Spaces by Colin Davies; Peace Through Superior Horsepower by Speedism; The Mormon Church's Infrastructure of Salvation by Jesse LeCavalier
#12:
Real Creativity: A Case for Ethical Freedom in Architecture by Randall Teal; Life without Architects - Interview with Magriet Smit by Bernd Upmeyer; Market Value(s) by STAR; Rotterdam is a Whore - Interview with Andre Kempe by Beatriz Ramo and Bernd Upmeyer



06-12-10 // MONU'S CHRISTMAS OFFER 2010



From December 6 until December 31 MONU offers:

1. A 1 year subscription (2 issues) for only €20 instead of €22,50 (saving 20% on cover price instead of 10%) + shipping.
2. A 2 year subscription (4 issues) for only €35 instead of €40 (saving 30% on cover price instead of 20%) + shipping.
3. A 50% discount on one copy if 2 issues of any # are purchased at once.
4. A 25% discount on each copy if 3 issues of any # are purchased at once.

If you are interested, please e-mail your order to christmasoffer@monu-magazine.com.


01-11-10 // NEW CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR MONU #14: EDITING URBANISM



These days, the need for new buildings or entire city quarters is decreasing or even ceasing to exist altogether - at least in the Western world - due to the demographic changes and financially difficult times. Ever since, architects and urban designers, who were trained by schools that focused their education first of all on the past and mainly taught urban and architectural restoration, preservation, renovation, redevelopment, or adaptive reuse of old structures might be best prepared for a future, in which cities will be edited rather than extended or even newly designed.

In such a future, which has become reality in most Western cities of this day and age, architects and urban planners will become urban editors...read the rest of the new call for submissions in Submit


29-10-10 // MONU IS COOL AND STRANGE



MONU magazine has been featured as "cool & strange" in the issue #6 2010 of the Korean edition of ELLEgirl.


05-10-10 // MONU #13 ON "MOST VALUABLE URBANISM" RELEASED



When John Lennon was photographed by the legendary rock 'n' roll photographer Bob Gruen, wearing a New York City T-shirt in the year 1974, he proudly expressed his love for the city of New York. For Lennon, although born in Liverpool, New York City was without doubt the most valuable city...continue reading here.


18-08-10 // MONU MAGAZINE IS DISPLAYED AT THE BALTIMORE BOOK FESTIVAL



MONU magazine on urbanism has been invited to be on display at the Baltimore Book Festival in Maryland, USA from September 24-26, 2010. The festival took place in the historic and picturesque Mount Vernon Place. MONU was part of an exhibition called “Creative Control”, a collection of zines, self-published and independent art books and magazines.


29-06-10 // MONU #12 EXHIBITED AT "LA CASA ENCENDIDA" IN MADRID



MONU magazine on urbanism #12 on "Real Urbanism" is being exhibited at "la casa encendida" in Madrid, Spain. The exhibition entitled "de zines", curated by Roberto Vidal and Oscar Martín, features independent publications (magazines, fanzines, artbooks and others). Around 400 international works are shown from June 29th, 2010 throughout all the summer.


31-03-10// MONU AT NEXT ART FAIR IN CHICAGO



MONU magazine on urbanism is being exhibited as part of a "research library" and magazine show during the NEXT art fair in Chicago from April 30 to May 3, 2010.


11-03-10 // MONU #12 ON REAL URBANISM RELEASED


Just like the "Ideal Woman" on the cover of this issue on Real Urbanism - a sculpture by the Brooklyn based artist Tony Matelli - most of our cities are shaped by a particular set of values... read more here!


25-02-10// MONU AT THE "BOOKMARK NAGOYA"

MONU magazine will be exhibited during the "Bookmark Nagoya" event in the city of Nagoya, Japan. The exhibition will take place from March 20th to April 20th 2010. More than 50 organizations will exhibit rare publications, vintage books, magazines, picture books from around the world. Various conferences with editors and writers take place, as well as temporary book making workshops among others are offered for all generations.


20-11-09// MONU'S CHRISTMAS OFFER



From November 20 until December 31 MONU offers a 50% discount on the issues MONU #5 - BRUTAL URBANISM and MONU #6 - BEAUTIFUL URBANISM. To get a single copy of #5 or #6 (Soft cover; Black/White; 84 pages; 27 x 20 cm) for €5 (+ NL €1,76 EU €2,96 Non-EU €5,70 shipping + ~4% PayPal fees), please e-mail your order to christmasoffer@monu-magazine.com.


19-10-09// MONU AT TOKYO DESIGN WEEK



MONU magazine on urbanism will be exhibited during the TOKYO DESIGN WEEK from October 30th to November 3rd 2009 inside the main venue of the 100% DESIGN TOKYO hall. The Magazine Library space
will be in the center of the main venue.


17-07-09 // MONU MAGAZINE ON URBANISM WILL BE EXHIBITED
AT THE "A FEW ZINES" EXHIBITION IN LOS ANGELES FROM AUGUST 14 TO 16



The A Few Zines show has been in New York and Boston, and is now coming to Los Angeles. The LA Forum hosts the insta-show for three days on Hollywood Blvd. The festivities kick off Friday, August 14 with a panel discussion and opening party. (photos taken by Bryan Jackson and John Southern)


08-05-09 // MONU MAGAZINE ON URBANISM WILL BE EXHIBITED AT THE SPACE ROCKET IN HARAJUKU, TOKYO



The exhibition will take place from May 22 to June 2 with daily opening times from 12:00-19:30.


20-04-09 // MONU MAGAZINE ON URBANISM WILL BE PRESENTED ON THE YOUNG ART FAIR IN BASEL
- LISTE 09 FROM JUNE 9 - 14


Every year since its opening in 1996, the LISTE - the Young Art Fair in Basel has presented new and important galleries and highly contemporary young art. The LISTE, by introducing galleries in general that are no more than 5 years old and artists under 40, is considered as one of the most important fairs for young art and one of the art world’s most important discoverer fair.


29-01-09 // MONU HAS BEEN SELECTED TO BE PART OF THE MOOH EVENT IN TOKYO


MONU - magazine on urbanism has been selected from magazines around the world to be exhibited from March 5 to March 14 2009 in a temporary magazine library in the Omotesando Hills building complex in Tokyo,
Japan. MONU will be part of the MOOH event: "The Magazine of Omotesando Hills Library".