MONU – magazine on urbanism

Monu is an English-language, biannual magazine, which deals with urban issues. It is edited and published in Rotterdam. The first issue came out in June 2004.

Topics and Mission

Monu focuses on the city in an extended sense, taking into account their politics, economics, geography, ecology, its social aspects, as well as their physical structure and architecture, areas, all of which are summarized under the term " urbanism ". She describes herself as an independent, non-conformist niche magazine that published critical articles, images, concepts and theories of urban architects, urbanists and theorists from around the world on a particular topic.

Monu does lay claim to examine issues from a variety of perspectives that are important for the future of our cities and urban regions and represents a platform for comparative analysis ready. The different viewpoints, contexts and methods of analysis are thereby enable a discussion of various issues in a comprehensive manner. The combination of the lyrics and projects that are created in different cultures and people with different professional backgrounds, generate new insights into the complex phenomena associated with cities. Monu is aimed at a highly educated readership, claiming an audience with many influential architects and urban theorists to have. The journal serves as a platform for the exchange of ideas and thereby provides a collective intelligence about urbanism ago.

What Monu aims since its inception, is the exploration of all possible aspects of urban and all things that appear around the city. Since its inception, the magazine is intrigued to discover the hidden political, social and economic truths, realities, and formal relationships in cities.

Opinions

Monu is generally critical of the fact that urban areas often only meet the wishes and dreams of an influential minority, and sees in this context, the needs of most other people neglected. Monu criticized the behavior of a financial elite that only developed real estate projects in cities to meet their consumption needs.

The magazine also condemned the lack of interest among architects and urban planners in dealing with the enormous potential of the existing urban inventory and issues such as urban and architectural restoration, historic preservation, renovation, restoration, urban regeneration or reuse of old buildings as socially irresponsible and economically and culturally unacceptable.

Monu disapproves of the non- ideological - or better post- ideological - conditions of our society when it comes to cities, and sees a new sincerity necessary in a time that is no longer characterized by a single urban ideology, but of a variety of ways and urban forms.

Previous articles submitted, inter alia, by:

• Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), Reinier de Graaf (2004, Monu # 1 - Paid Urbanism )
• Thomas Sieverts (2005, Monu # 2 - Middle Class Urbanism )
• Joost Meuwissen (2005, Monu # 3 - Political Urbanism )
• Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (2006, Monu # 4 - Denied Urbanism )
• Loïc Wacquant, Eyal Weizman (2006, Monu # 5 - Brutal Urbanism )
• Supersudaca (2007, Monu # 6 - Beautiful Urbanism )
• Floris Alkemade (2007, Monu # 7 - 2nd Rate Urbanism )
• Joep van Lieshout, Teddy Cruz (2008, Monu # 8 - Border Urbanism )
• Owen Hatherley, Shumon Basar (2008, Monu # 9 - Exotic Urbanism )
• NL Architects, Kees Christiaanse (2009, Monu # 10 - Holy Urbanism )
• Bjarke Ingels, MVRDV (2010, Monu # 12 - Real Urbanism )
• Hans Frei (2010, Monu # 13 - Most Valuable Urbanism )
• Rem Koolhaas, Adolfo Natalini, Beatriz Ramo (2011, Monu # 14 - Editing Urbanism )
• Wouter Vanstiphout, Thomas Ruff (2011, Monu # 15 - Post- Ideological Urbanism )
• Edward W. Soja, Mike Crang, Stephen Graham (2012, Monu # 16 - Non- Urbanism )
• Joel Garreau, Saskia Sassen, Kunle Adeyemi (2012, Monu # 17 - Next Urbanism )
• Rainer Langhans, Atelier 5, Richard Sennett (2013, Monu # 18 - Communal Urbanism )
• Antoine Grumbach, Rogers Stirk Harbour Partners, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (2013, Monu # 19 - Greater Urbanism )