MONU (Magazine on Urbanism) is a unique biannual international forum for architects, urbanists and theorists that are 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 the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Continuous publication began in June 2004. MONU is an independent, non-conformist, niche publication that collects critical articles, images, concepts, and urban theories from architects, urbanists and theorists from around the world on a given topic.

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 functions as a platform for the exchange of ideas and thus constitutes a collective intelligence on urbanism.

“To Be Finished Is to Be Dead” claims Mark Wigley in our interview with him. Because only an unfinished city is a city that is open to unknown and unpredictable transactions and that is what cities are for. To him, urbanism is only urbanism to the extent that it is unfinished and “Unfinished Urbanism” an urgent call in an age of a pandemic and of predictability, both of which are killing us. According to Marco Enia and Flavio Martella a living city can actually never be finished, because by their very nature cities are unfinished organisms. As long as they are home to a living community, cities will constantly readjust to meet its needs and desires and only stop changing when they start to decay and vice versa. “Unfinishedness” allows for complex forms of appropriation and participation, creating a stronger bond with the city as they state in their contribution