MONU Magazine on Urbanism

BOARD (Bureau of Architecture, Research, and Design)

Short description

MONU is an annual independent international magazine for architects, urbanists and theorists working on urban topics. MONU focuses on the city in a broad sense, including its politics, economy, geography, ecology, its social aspects, as well as its physical structure and architecture. Therefore, architecture is one of many fields covered by the magazine - fields which are all brought together under the catch-all term “urbanism”.

MONU is edited in Rotterdam Netherlands. Continuous publication began in June 2004. From 2004 until 2020 MONU was published twice a year and since 2021 it appears once a year. Every issue deals with one topic giving MONU an “encyclopedic” monothematic character.

MONU’s topics have always been daring and have been stirring up the status quo of architecture and urbanism shaping the environment for discussions around cities and its societal ramifications.

MONU examines topics that are important to the future of our cities and urban regions from a variety of perspectives and provides a platform for comparative analysis. The different viewpoints, contexts and methods of analysis allow for an exploration of various topics in a rich fashion. The combination of the writings and projects created within different cultures and from different professional backgrounds generates new insights in the complex phenomena connected to cities.

MONU’s critical articles and theories are selected mainly through its paradigmatic “Call for Submission (CFS)”. This keeps the magazine as open-sourced as possible creating a platform for the exchange of ideas and as a collective intelligence on urbanism.
Additionally, MONU invites some of the most relevant thinkers in the field of architecture and urbanism, having featured and interviewed many influential figures over the years (e.g. Ai Weiwei, Mark Wigley, Beatriz Colomina, Keller Easterling, Richard Sennett, Rem Koolhaas, Saskia Sassen).

Another pivotal point of MONU is its photo essays, since each issue includes typically 2 articles by photographers, who are either invited to contribute, or they responded to the CFS (e.g. Thomas Ruff, Edward Burtynsky, Candida Höfer, Michael Wolf).

MONU’s layout has been special due to its diverse appearance since the beginning. The diverse use of typography can already be seen in its table of contents spread foreshadowing the fonts of the articles. Characteristically every article has a different design, uses a different font and has a significantly different style. Some of MONU´s signature layouts include the scattered images, text boxes on background images, and the 3 column black-and-white articles.

MONU mainly uses uncoated white paper, except for the pages for the photography and the interviews, for which coated matt paper and white silk paper is used.
MONU has been recognized as one of the most innovative and progressive magazines in its field and was 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 as part of the documenta’s magazines project.
MONU's profound content, sharp analyses and unique design has made the magazine itself the focus of several international exhibitions at places such as London (Architectural Association), New York (Storefront), Madrid (Casa Encendida), and Tokyo (Omotesando Hills).

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What people say about MONU:

“Monu (Magazine on Urbanism) was born in 2004 in Rotterdam. What was originally an almost underground magazine made available through a pdf dossier and a stapled black and white print has evolved into one of the main independent publications, a reference for the collective intelligence of urbanism, and an icon of exquisite aesthetics.” By theamazingjackiepanda, June 8, 2011

“I feel it necessary to stress the valuable role that MONU has played in the past few years, specifically for the architecture and urbanism community. As the biggest (to my knowledge) indie publication focused explicitly on urbanism, MONU has provided a voice for many emerging young professionals — a chance to be published and have their ideas heard in print format.” By Brendan Cormier, May 21, 2011.

“MONU (Magazine on Urbanism) was born in 2004 in Rotterdam and morphed into being a leading exponent of international thinking on urbanism.” By Michael McDermott, Oct. 1, 2020.

“MONU’s editors make one of today’s most provocative architectural publications come to life.” By Anthony Morey, Dec 10, 2018.

“While physical information exchange is slowly being supplanted by an online culture of surfing for information, the past ten years of publishing have produced more than a few exceptional artifacts which transcend the contemporary individual’s tendencies toward temporal dabs at intellectualism. One of these projects is MONU.” By John Southern, June 11, 2011.