Monocle’s latest issue sets out the benchmarks (and benches) for a better world as we put the 50 recipients of this year’s Monocle Design Awards in the spotlight. Elsewhere, we visit the rugged terrain of northern Norway to witness one of the biggest military drills in Nato’s history and George Town to explore how Malaysia’s tropical tech hub is booming.
AT THE FRONT
THE AGENDA: GLOBAL BRIEFINGS
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Flowering mountain slopes and traditional meadows. Icy glaciers and majestic summits. With their untouched nature and raw beauty, the Alps have always been a source of fascination. Angelika Taschen presents the best accommodation for Alpinists – historic inns, guesthouses, monasteries, mountain huts, chalets, palazzi, design hotels, even a youth hostel.
The Alps are Europe’s biggest and greatest mountain range. Formed millions of years ago, they became a popular destination for travelers in the late eighteenth century – first for adventurers and explorers, then for artists and writers, and finally for everyone who wanted to spend summer in the fresh air of this wonderful scenery or take part in winter sports. Angelika Taschen has followed in their footsteps and collected the finest hotels in the Alpine nations of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy.
They include the Kranzbach near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, built for a British aristocrat, Gasthof Hirschen in the Bregenzerwald, where art-loving visitors have been welcomed since 1755, and the Seehof near Salzburg with its emphasis on contemporary art and fine cuisine. The journey goes to Waldhaus Sils in Sils Maria, where many creative guests have found inspiration, to the Schatzalp in Davos, which Thomas Mann immortalized in literature in “The Magic Mountain”, and to picturesque bed & breakfasts with a personal touch such as Brücke49 in Vals and Maison Bergdorf in Interlaken.
High above Chamonix, mountaineers have stayed overnight for more than 140 years at Refuge du Montenvers with its view of the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in France. In the exclusive Megève, too, which Baroness Noémie de Rothschild put on the tourist map, travelers experience the Alps à la française in the chalet hotel L’Alpaga; and a bit of Italian dolce vita is provided by stunning addresses in the South Tyrol such as the Ottmangut in Merano, Villa Arnica in Lana with its nostalgic atmosphere, and Pension Briol near Barbiano, constructed in 1928 in the Bauhaus style and extended in 2021 with the addition of two extremely modern buildings.
This opulent book of photographs presents the Alpine range and accommodation in large-format images, short texts, and useful details on prices and how to get there. Walkers, skiers, gourmets, and lovers of good living will find valuable tips and very special accommodation: former monasteries where guests still find peace and seclusion, a mountain hut at the heart of the Dolomites, and a youth hostel occupying what was once a sanatorium, a rare example of modern architecture in Switzerland that was declared a heritage monument in 2002.
What honor required of men.
During World War II, François Tosquelles treated patients by addressing the sickness of society
Oklahoma
Aboriginal photographer Wayne Quilliam has been travelling across Australia for 30 years, documenting its hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. He shares people’s stories, he says, so others can better understand the diversity of Aboriginal cultures. “I don’t generally reflect on the negatives of what’s happening in our communities because there are so many that do so,” he says. A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers: This video contains images of people who may have died.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, what is China getting wrong? Also, why the world should stand up to Putin (10:43). And, crypto and web3: libertarian dream, or socialist Utopia? (18:27).
On the cover of the Innovation & Technology Issue, Christoph Niemann captures the eternal tug of war between the lure of the outside and the joys of technology. Even for a prehistoric cave dweller, the tablet could prove potently absorbing. The dilemma has only grown as the number and variety of technological gadgets has proliferated. We recently talked to the artist about the place of digital tools and good old-fashioned paper and pencil in his creative process.
From Chelsea to the canals, Londoners are taking to the water in search of a more peaceful way of life on a houseboat. Jo Rodgers clambers aboard.
Not far from World’s End, the Chelsea neighbourhood of 1970s council blocks and top-tier antique dealers, there’s a turn-off toward the Thames that you could pass 100 times without noticing. Next to the Embankment, a pair of planked wooden doors open to a quiet boatyard with a few handfuls of moorings, including the sunny houseboat of Alexandra Pringle, a publisher, and her husband, Rick Stroud, a writer and film-maker. A sturdy green gangway (‘the Waitrose delivery drivers are sometimes very nervous,’ says Alexandra) takes you over the riverbank to a red front door, flanked by hale plants, in terracotta pots and dolly bins, and a brass ship bell.
Monocle 24’s Emma Nelson and panellists Nabila Ramdani and Stephen Dalziel cover the weekend’s biggest stories. Plus: a check-in on what’s making headlines in Helsinki.
Boomers Daily 