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ABOUT MONU

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 last summer. MONU was invited by Arch+, a German architectural publication that was organizing the workspace as part of the documenta's magazines project.

MONU is produced and published by the Rotterdam based Bureau of Architecture, Research, and Design (www.b-o-a-r-d.nl), headed by Bernd Upmeyer.

comments on MONU:

"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)

"Paulina handed the issue to me during a buying meeting at the SoHo offices of Phillip Galgiani, a distributer of European art, photo, and design books. I held it for a minute or two before I realized what I had: special little thing called Monu: magazine on urbanism that's black and white all over with a stern layout aesthetic that very nearly blinded me to its possibly luscious content."

(http://hundredsofways.blogspot.com/2007/11/oh-em-gee-ohemgeeohemgeeohemgeeohemgee.html)
(November 5, 2007)

"The very interesting magazine on urbanism, Monu, is prepearing its next number. The 7th publication of Monu will deal with what they have called "2nd urbanism". Those cities not so known as the A-list of metropolis in the world."

(http://urbanistika.blogspot.com/2007_02_25_archive.html)
(February 28, 2007)

"I just stumbled upon a new magazine on urbanism, including lots of critical texts with well known good names. MONU (Magazine on Urbanism) calls for submissions of each issue via its website. However the last issue is announced for Winter 2006 but the site is not updated yet.
It is good to have such a magazine which focuses not only the single artifacts of the architectural production, but the overall field where architects are actually should play. One wishes such a magazine and its alikes reach a wider community."

(http://arkiblog.net/blog/2006/12/11/magazine-for-critical-urbanism-2/)
(December 11, 2006)

Bernd Upmeyer BoARD Bureau of Architecture, Research and Design MONU magazine on urbanism