Monocle magazine top cities for quality of life 2021

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Since 2007, the magazine Monocle has published an annual Quality of Life Survey that ranks cities around the world as "liveable locations".

They thought that it was inappropriate to produce a list last year, at a high point in the pandemic, but their journalists and research team now see cities "building back bigger and better" so their criteria for the list in 2021 - recently published - have changed to reflect this with emphasis on "confidence and the push for a quality of life that works for all."

In the introduction to the list, Monocle sets out key requirements for a liveable city including "robust, dependable services, plenty of green spaces and strong leadership" and their important message is to "get the basics right and it's easier to weather the catastrophe."

I assume that the typical reader of Monocle is relatively young but well established - so 25 to 45 and professional; well off or affluent rather than wealthy; used to travelling frequently for work or for leisure and with high expectations when it comes to food, eating out and spending on clothes and furniture. This is reflected in their assessment of each city but the magazine has always been astute about and critical of public services - particularly international, regional and local transport - and this makes their survey as much about governance and good business as about simple consumption.

On first seeing the list, the obvious observation is that Nordic capital cities take three of the top four places and these are cities with strong, left-of-centre or socialist governments at local and national level.

The entry for Copenhagen points out the importance for the city of its sense of pride in social cohesion and that has certainly been important as the city went into lockdown.

Most parts of the city have easy access to green space and to the clean waters of the harbour for exercise, swimming, a huge range of outdoor sports and for leisure and through the pandemic these public outdoor areas have been crucial as safe outdoor areas where anyone and everyone can exercise and socialise.

In their short assessment Monocle spotlights the new Metro ring that has “made it easier to access all parts of the city, and the Refshaleøen district is particularly appealing these days due to the presence of of the Copenhagen Contemporary art museum and an eclectic range of dining options."

Quality of Life Special Edition
July/August 2021 issue 145
Monocle

 
 
 

Monocle top 20
Liveable Cities

① Copenhagen
② Zurich
③ Helsinki
④ Stockholm
⑤ Tokyo
⑥ Vienna
⑦ Lisbon
⑧ Auckland
⑨ Taipei
⑩ Sydney
⑪ Seoul
⑫ Vancouver
⑬ Munich
⑭ Berlin
⑮ Amsterdam
⑯ Madrid
⑰ Melbourne
⑱ Kyoto
⑲ Brisbane
⑳ Los Angeles

 

Nytt Rom 77 - THE PERSONAL ISSUE

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The new issue of Nytt Rom for August - September is out now.

From the introduction to the magazine …….
“The design and communication studio TypeO has designed a rural retreat for guests in an old farmhouse from 1842. The house is located in idyllic surroundings among rolling fields and beautiful nature in the countryside of Skåne. The attic's original construction is preserved, with exposed beams and a large gable window. The rooms are decorated with durable and timeless products, which give uniqueness, warmth and personality. Architect Trude Nordaal bought a house in Italy after many years of fascination with the country, and completely renovated the place. She also left her own mark on the home by preserving the old, where the result was a charming mix of traditional Italian craftsmanship and her own Scandinavian form influence. In addition, we present the editorial office's home in a classic Frogner apartment, plus a minimalist and all-white villa in Spain.”

“This edition we have dedicated tears in the corner of the eye, pure joy, passion, security, long relationships, new relationships and cheers for those who dare to take a chance. It is not meant to be emotionally sticky, but rather to applaud the great joys and beauties we who are interested in this subject are exposed to. Everyday life is not rosy for anyone, but the joy and inspiration can be found in the smallest detail or in the most powerful landscape.”

Editor of Nytt Rom - Hans Petter Smeby

Nytt Rom

the FSC Design Awards 2019

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Yesterday the FSC Design Awards for 2019 were announced.

Fifty-four students in design and architecture entered forty-five works for the awards including chairs, tables, bookcases and other designs that were made using FSC-certified sustainable timber.

The FSC placed a strong emphasis on the UN 17 Sustainability Goals and this year their award ceremony took a new format as it was part of and followed a conference on designing for sustainability in the furniture industry and textile industry. This covered a broad range of subjects in talks and discussions but focused on the impact of sustainability on commercial production.

The event was held at the headquarters of Aller Media in Havneholmen in Copenhagen as their magazine - Mad & Bolig - co-sponsored the awards.

The FSC - the Forest Stewardship Council - is an international organisation that was founded in 1994 by a group of businesses, environmentalists, and community leaders after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio failed to produce an agreement to stop deforestation.

They promote "environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests."

The main FSC design prize was awarded to Morten Schnedler Jørgensen from Via Design & Business with his design for multi-functional furniture called Arabesque that can be a stool, a table or storage and is made with FSC-certified oak.

His prize is a trip to ScanCom International in Vietnam to work with their technical team.

Mad & Bolig magazine published photographs with information for all the entries for the award and readers were asked to vote for their choice and that prize was awarded to Oliver Bank Termøhlen from VIA Design & Business with his design called OT02 …. an elegant shelf for an entrance hall that incorporates a slim and ingenious draw for keys or phones and so on.

FSC - Forest Stewardship Council - Denmark
Mad & Bolig


after the awards were announced designers and guests relaxed

left: SILENT by Lasse Cha Pedersen
above: EIGIL by Emma Malte Larsen and Mathias Tage Falkenstøm - two benches that can interlocked to form a single seat and shelf - and, in the background, ATLAS - a bench designed by Kasper Kyster

Arabesque - designed by Morten Schnedler Jørgensen

OT02 - designed by Oliver Bank Termøhlen

 

As part of this event, Aller presented Mad & Bolig design awards

Best product:
Bolia for their Cosh-armchairs along with the rest of the 2020 collection 

the other contenders for the award were:
TAKT for their Soft Chair
Mater for Ocean
Wehlers for R.U.M. chair.

Best initiative:
Holmris for giving used furniture a new life either for resale or to be donated to associations and institutions

the other contenders for the award were
Skagerrak recycling platform Reclassic
IKEA for cooperation with Space10 that pushes the unthinkable in sustainability
Troldtekt for their focus on indoor climate, certification, glue and colours 

Best brand:
FDB Møbler for their uncompromising approach to materials 

the other contenders for the award were:
Alton & Heim for bringing life to sustainable production
Rug Solid for their policies on up cycling and shipping in production
Thors Design for creating sustainable furniture from up-cycled maritime bulwarks from Danish ports and ferry berths

entries for the FSC awards 2019

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Nytt Rom 68

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The theme for this issue of Nytt Rom is 'old meets new' and that, of course, is a key skill in Scandinavian design … to set the best of innovative or bold or even stark modern design within a historic or a rustic interior or to have beautifully-designed classic or antique furniture and objects in an otherwise uncompromisingly modern room.

in the introduction people from four of the homes featured in the issue are asked about their favourite places where they live.

Anne Margrethe Petersen lives in an Art Nouveau apartment in Bygdøy Allé in Oslo with polished parquet floors and decorated plaster ceiling cornices but has bold large pieces of modern furniture - the main bedroom in the apartment is featured on the cover - and there are interesting free-standing steel units in the kitchen. She choses, for her favourite place in the apartment, an old leather chair from her childhood home in Tromsø that is now next to windows facing the street and the city and where she can admire the Art Nouveau details on the roof.

Henrik Kjær Christiansen, of Kjær Architecture, has an apartment in an old building in the centre of Copenhagen with angled walls and his choice of favourite place is sitting at his round kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a view of Nyhavn's canal.

Jonas Gunerius Larsen has restored a wooden house in Oslo and likes to sit on the stairs to get an overview of the different parts of his house and he also sits at the kitchen window to see people passing by the building.

Knud Foldstad, an architect in Stavanger, likes best where the construction and materials of his old house meet new design so it becomes a 'magical place.' This is in some ways the most striking and original of the interiors with beams and joists exposed above plain plaster walls without cornices and skirtings but there are many changes of level and intersecting spaces and the use of cupboards in softwood used as screens and an assured mix of styles with metal units in the kitchen on thin steel legs but a rococo oval mirror above the bathroom basin.

Another apartment, the home of Carsten Nielsen in Aalborg, is featured showing his mid-century modern furniture and there is a spread of photographs of one of the apartments in The Silo in Copenhagen that was recently converted by COBE - the Copenhagen architectural and planning offices who have converted former warehouses nearby as a new headquarters. Apartments in The Silo have very high ceilings and large sections of exposed concrete that were an integral part of the industrial building and make a very dramatic setting for furniture. From large pierced-metal balconies hung on the outside of the Silo, these apartments have views out across the entrance to the harbour with the sound beyond . This building is certain to be featured in many magazines over the coming years.

The interior of the new Hotel Hermann K in the centre of Copenhagen - across the road from the department store Magasin - is featured. It is in a former electricity sub station and has a spectacular lobby rising through three floors in a tight space that has the lift and the main bar.

As always the magazine keeps track of both new designs and of designs from the classic period of mid 20th-century design that have been relaunched. In this issue are Chair LC7 designed by Charlotte Perriand designed in 1927 and produced by Cassina from 1973; Noble Chair by Arne Hovmand-Olsen from 1959 that is now made for Warm Nordic and Model 107 by Ib Kofod-Larsen that was made by Magnus Olesen from 1956 that again has recently been relaunched.

Among the notices about current exhibitions, there is a notice or preview, of the work of the Danish architect Dorte Mandrup who will be the subject of a major exhibition at Danish Architecture Centre opening on 13 March.

And, as always, Nytt Rom has short book reviews or notices including one for Bauhaus Architecture 1919-1933 by Hans Engels … the magazine has an important role when book shops with comprehensive architecture sections are getting rarer and it is too easy to miss new publications.

 

Nytt Rom 67

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The usual good mix of short book reviews, assessments of new products and so on with longer articles on a number of interiors including a review of the Hotel Sanders in Copenhagen.

This is called the Warm Modern Issue and looks at a distinct trend in Scandinavian interiors, identified as moving away from the simple uncluttered or even slightly spartan rooms - the white walls, undecorated furniture in bold shapes and bare wood floors usually associated with design from the region - to rooms that have more in them and reflect the individual. In the editor's phrase "confident personality and comfort, heavy curtains and big sofas, dark veneer panels, décor, colours and chairs not necessarily from a well-known designer."

Hotel Sanders, just off Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen, certainly has a mixture of furniture of different styles and periods and a lot of books and ornaments and Det Blå Hus / The Blue House in Kongens Lyngby north of Copenhagen has an extraordinary room with books stacked high up into the roof space.

An older apartment in Oslo by the architects Grethe Løland and Harald Martin Gjøvåg has walls painted mainly in blue in various shades from mid blue to midnight that gives them a good background for a range of classic mid-century and modern furniture. Any heaviness in using such a strong palette of colours is offset by lighter woodwork - particularly dado panels - and by ornate white plaster ceilings.

There are plenty of simple and uncluttered interiors and even some interiors with plain wood boarding in this edition of the magazine if you are still not ready to move across to the idea of more dramatic and moody Scandinavian interiors.

Nytt Rom

Nytt Rom 66

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This is described as The Contradiction Issue and is "all about not being biased."

Homes profiled include summerhouses in South Sjælland and near Stavanger and several apartments of very different styles. It was interesting to see just how many homes featured have imaginative solutions for what is essentially storage on display.

Short reviews of furniture and product include furniture by Karimoku and Norm, a kettle from Vipp, the Blister Bowl from Matias Moellenbach and the reissue by Menu of the Knitting Chair by Ib Kofod-Larsen from 1951.

There is a short notice with a couple of photographs of the courtyard space of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm that will reopen on the 13th of this month after being closed to the public for several years for major restoration.

Nytt Rom

Nytt Rom 65

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The latest edition of Nytt Rom is out. This is “The Have Seen Something Great Issue.”

There are the expected reviews of books, new design and food places including the furniture of Million cph and the Wulff & Konstali shop in Nørrebro.

A number of reviews focus on design in Belgium and the Netherlands.

There are also longer profiles of the homes of designers including the studio of Niels Ditlevs in Fredriksberg with amazing industrial pieces including lighting and furniture; the home of Claus Jakobsens of Million cph with deep green walls as a background for classic modern furniture; the town house of Grete Jarmund and Kjell Beites and in Flanders a single-storey, metal-framed and glass house by Govaert & Vanhouttein that has been built in the established garden of an older house that is a restaurant. 

Nytt Rom

 

Issue 64 of Nytt Rom is now out.

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With the usual good mix of short reviews of exhibitions; notes about new products or relaunches and photo essays of a fascinating selection of the houses and apartments - here all the homes of design professionals - there is a sub heading .... so this is the 'romkvaliteter' or room quality issue of Nytt Rom.

In his preface, the editor Hans Petter Smeby explains why there is this focus for this issue …..

“Interior magazines and articles on the topic are often dominated by furnishing and elegant styling, while the qualities of the room itself are often ignored. It is a challenge in a two-dimensional medium to describe an overall quality. If you describe the room’s own quality, as a place, as a three-dimensional whole, you may discover new qualities and inspiration. A room can have interesting building details in floors, walls and ceilings that are dominating. Reason for originality can also be colouring of surfaces, or interesting furniture, or special lighting, as well as stunning views to the horizon or out at pine trees in the wood.”

So not about what you might expect in a magazine about Scandinavian design - not simply about the high quality of Scandinavian design but, much more interesting, about the character and quality of spaces in which we set the design ... how well-designed furniture and objects are often difficult to judge objectively from a photograph taken in a carefully-styled studio set and really should not be seen in isolation because everything we buy, particularly furniture, has to function in a real space and occupy a real place ... so this is less about the object and more about context.

 

There is a brief assessment of the new DAC (Danish Architecture Centre) on the harbour in Copenhagen and photographs of their first big exhibition - Welcome Home.

Longer profiles of the homes of people working in design include this month the Oslo home of Gitte Witt and Filip Loebbert; the apartment of Marie Graunbøl in Enghave Plads in Vesterbro in Copenhagen and the homes of Jeppe Christensen of Reform and Common Seating and of Hannah Trickett in Ørestaden in Copenhagen.

What is common to all these interiors is a general feeling of clean open space, most still with white walls, with careful placing of classic design pieces along with more unusual and more personal pieces of pottery or items brought back from travels. Photographs were taken from further back so cornices and floors are shown giving at least some sense of the height and scale of the spaces and the inclusion of windows is interesting, in part because this shows how important light is and how important it is to consider how light changes through the day illuminating and then throwing into shadow parts of a room and of course it is fascinating to see that most Scandinavian homes are a curtain-free zone. What clearly is important, to make it all work, is the designers eye for choosing and mixing and placing.

The dining room in the apartment of Jeppe Christensen is great with a deep blue wall - that distinct deep blue slightly softer and greyer than French navy - is this the St Paul blue from Frama - with a bench against it with a strong orange colour for seating on one side of the white table and then arranged around the other sides a collection of classic chairs with a Thonet bentwood arm chair in black; an Arne Jacobsen Grand Prix in black; an Eames wire chair; a Workshop Chair by Cecile Manz and a Standard Chair by Jean Prouvé and again in black. Above the table is a bold but ultra-simple white pendant lamp although not the usual light from Louis Poulsen or Le Klint or even a Sinus by Piet Hein but a pendant designed by Gino Sarfatti. Clearly the skill is to imitate a good conversation … know what to quote to show you know what you are talking about, mix things up by combining very different things and then throw in something unexpected.

There is an alternative to plain walls …there are photographs of the display rooms at Skagerak - out on the north side of Kastellet in Copenhagen - with some of the rooms painted with designs by All The Way to Paris and an amazing photograph, towards the end, of furniture from Hay shown in the Palazzo Clerisi in a room lined with ornate gilded panelling and mirrors.

Along with a lot more there is a photo review of the new restaurant on the Silo building overlooking the north harbour in Copenhagen and a photograph of the recently re launched NOMA in their new home in Copenhagen.

As you begin to think that some of these ideas might be do-able, Nytt Rom throws in three buildings that are really beyond the dreams of most - a house on a Danish beach by Norm; a house in a steep-sided wooded valley by Stiv Kulig and a house by Think Architects that clings to an outcrop of rock against a mountain backdrop ... design set in the space of stunning landscapes.

Nytt Rom 64

 
 

Nytt Rom 63 - Sharing Dreams Issue

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This issue for April and May has the theme "sharing dreams."

Nytt Rom is always a good place to find out about what is new or what has been or is about to be re released so this month a short piece about the desk designed by Arne Jacobsen from 1952 that is back in the catalogue with Carl Hansen; a new side light or table lamp from Louis Poulsen based on the 1971 Panthella designed by Verner Panton; the Triangle Chair from 1958 by Vilhelm Wohlert now available from stellarworks along with an interesting new chair by Anderssen & Voll called Pavilion that is for &tradition and a three intriguing chairs - the Letter A Chair by Caroline Olsson, the No 7 Lounge by Helge Sibast  and the slightly more traditional design from Isabel AHM - the AHM Chair.

Profiles of designers include an article on the American designer Brad Ascalon who designed the Preludia series of chairs for Carl Hansen.

Buildings and interiors include a longer piece on a farmhouse in Skåne and an apartment of Henrik Olssøn and Erika Barbieri.

 

Skandinavisk - pop up shop

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Skandinavisk - the people who make scented candles and diffusers and, more recently, a range of perfume oils, soaps and hand creams - have opened a pop up shop in Værnedamsvej in Copenhagen and they will be open until 26th April.

Although this is a short-term venture, a huge amount of work and care has gone into the design of the space from the customised front window - matching the graphics of their cotton carrier bags - through to the pine display shelving and the use of greenery. 

They have produced Voices ... a magazine to explain the company ethos … with images and interviews reminiscent of life-style magazines like Cereal. That is certainly not a bad thing … just a very good way to explain their approach. There are interviews with an editor; a photographer; a food stylist and a publisher - one with photographs of her home on one of the smaller Danish islands; one with her home in a Swedish forest; one who grew up in a small community on a fjord outside Oslo and - to complete the Nordic set - the publisher is from Helsinki.

So it really is about telling the story of how life in the Nordic countries has inspired the scents Skandinavisk have created.

With this web site I try to tread a distinct path - away from the life-style blogs - but that does not mean that I do not appreciate a story because that’s the way to understand the what and the why and the how.

Certainly what is clear is that, as so often in Denmark, behind the products and the beautiful design is a huge amount of thought and that covers not just what is produced and how it is made but how it is presented and so much depends on the details ... for Danes the over-riding principle with design is if you do something then you do it properly … so here the glass and ceramic candle holders have wood lids; for the white ceramic candle holders the design is raised; the names of each scent are chosen to reflect the mood to describe the mood that scent evokes and, of course, simple but pitch-perfect photographs and graphics.

 

Skandinavisk

Værnedamsvej 6, 1620 Copenhagen

Monday to Friday 11.00 - 18.00

Saturday 10.00 - 16.00

SKANDINAVISK-Pop-Up-store-Copenhagen-PhotographyMikkelTjellesen_01.jpg

image from SKANDINAVISK

 

the harbour ferry - a video by Magasinet KBH

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Back in February the online magazine site Magasinet KBH posted a video that shows the journey of the ferry from the south end of the harbour at Teglholmen to the landing stage at Nordre Tolbod.

The camera was set up on the front of a ferry so you see the whole harbour at ferry speed including turning in and docking at each of the landing stages and then backing out before heading on north. The film takes about 44 minutes because the ferry takes about 44 minutes and this really is the antidote to the swipe right and move on approach to much on the Web. This is slow web at its best and 44 minutes is not download but run time.

I took the ferry down to the south end of the harbour to take the photographs for posts here so it seemed like a good time to include this with a link to their site.

 

note:

Magasinet KBH is an online magazine with articles on buildings and planning in Copenhagen with general architecture and environmental news and interesting opinion pieces. There is also a regular news letter that you can sign up to receive automatically. It is in Danish but translating the tab in Safari or Chrome works well. 

Magasinet KBH