Madrid has thrown off the shackles of tradition: what was once a buttoned-down bastion of conservatism has become Spain's unabashed centre of the avant-garde. Monocle Films visits the city to discover a melting pot of talent, taste and tenacity.

Our new book OFF THE ROAD showcases globetrotters from around the world, as well as their trusted cars, campers, 4x4s, and other temporary homes. Explore the world through the photos and videos taken by the new generation of vagabonds who are choosing to leave behind the 9-to-5 workday in favor of a life on the go. View a short preview of OFF THE ROAD on Gestalten.tv and buy the book in our online shop.

Michigan-based illustrator Lucy Engelman takes a highly emotional approach to cartography that balances geographic accuracy with her subjective experiences. Her intricate maps aren't instructional guides of where to go and what to see. Instead, they are embedded with a sense of how a place makes her feel. Meet Lucy Engelman in our latest video on Gestalten.tv and see more of her work in our recent release MIND THE MAP.

Artist Carsten Nicolai explores the complexity of math, science, and perception in his compelling art installations. Gestalten.tv visited Nicolai in his hometown of Chemnitz, Germany to learn how the rules of time and space have shaped his creative process. To celebrate Nicolai's 50th birthday, the Kunstsammlung Chemnitz is currently exhibiting his avant-garde artwork UNITAPE until November 8. To see more of his work, check out our new book PARALLEL LINES CROSS AT INFINITY, which showcases...

In the first of two films to celebrate the publication of THE MONOCLE GUIDE TO COSY HOMES, we visit the residence of Knud Erik Hansen, managing director of Carl Hansen & Son and grandson of the company\'s iconic founder. Hansen has transformed an impressive Danish estate into a comfortable family home, filling it with beautiful furniture and preserving the property's charm. THE MONOCLE GUIDE TO COSY HOMES is now available at Gestalten Pavilion, Gestalten Space, and in our online shop.

Our recent release The Ride 2nd Gear presents motorcycles as motorcycles are meant to be: radical, stylish, subversive, raw. To celebrate our custom bike compendium, we invited builders from around the world—including Auto Fabrica, El Solitario, Wrenchmonkees, and many other workshops featured in The Ride 2nd Gear—to display their bikes in Gestalten Space. The show also included custom prints by Corpses From Hell and Death Spray Custom and Gestalten.tv was on the scene to catch all the...

Our book FROM TIP TO TOE is for men who are still finding their style and for those who seek to continuously refine their personal look. It features a carefully curated collection of menswear brands and makers from around the world, as well as a selection of recommended shops. One of those makers is Frank Leder, the Berlin-based menswear specialist. Gestalten.tv spoke with him about how he integrates German cultural heritage into his avant-garde garments.

Bangkok is a city both liberal and traditional, where outsiders are always welcome but few can gain a true understanding of the capital's intricacies. Bangkok: The Monocle Travel Guide will steer you to our favorite hotels and retailers, lesser-known neighborhoods, tasty restaurants and street-side bars where Bangkok's bright young things party until the early hours. Bangkok: The Monocle Travel Guide is available now at Gestalten Pavilion, Gestalten Space, and in our online shop.

The Monocle Guide Cosy Homes tells us how to turn a house into a home in which lives can unfold, children grow up, and dogs run wild. Most architecture and interior books show houses polished to perfection, manicured to the extent that it is hard to imagine anybody actualize lives there: they seem to miss the point that homes are meant to be inhabited. Through striking photography, The Monocle Guide to Cosy Homes also gives you a glimpse into the lives that unfold in these apartments, villas,...

Our new release The Still Life showcases the evolution of this age-old genre in stunning product portraiture and editorial photography by some of today\'s most imaginative photographers, designers, and stylists—including Scheltens & Abbenes. Ranging from minimally understated to opulently glamorous, the featured work meticulously styles objects into elaborate compositions that skillfully meld elements of scenography and sculpture with the art of selling. The book is available now at...

Hong Kong has been a city of many identities: a community of fishing villages, a refuge for immigrants, an international port, and a British colony. Today the city continues to question its personality as it finds its place as part of modern China. The Monocle Travel Guide to Hong Kong will show you where to head for rich shopping experiences and handmade shoes and shirts. Navigate the futuristic skyways connecting office towers and you'll pass over temples from which incense smoke trails...

If Tokyo's reputation is that of an imposing, neon-lit, modern city, a visit will reveal a very different side: low-rise, leafy and welcoming. For The Monocle Travel Guide to Tokyo, the Monocle team has canvassed the metropolis for places that highlight this lesser-known side. They show a balance of the old and new, the monumental and artisanal. Many are their own favorite haunts: coffee shops, architectural gems, and neighborhoods where you can wander on foot or explore by bicycle and find...

Out of the Jar features the best and most unusual spirits from small manufacturers around the world. They are made by a new generation of distillers who are cultivating rare varieties of fruit, herbs, and spices; reviving and reinterpreting high-proof family recipes; or labeling each of their bottles by hand. Gestalten.tv's portrait introduces a hands-on whiskey maker from a prohibition-era distillery in Brooklyn, a passionate mezcalero who doesn't chicken out from an unusual recipe, and a...

New York can easily live up to its movie-star good looks but it can be a city that surprises, too. Monocle has had a bureau in New York since its launch in 2007 and this has made them passionate about this city and its ambitions. Published by Gestalten, The Monocle Travel Guide to New York is a celebration of all that Monocle loves about the city.

Norwegian explorer, lawyer, and writer Erling Kagge illuminates the international art market in his book "A Poor Collector's Guide to Buying Great Art." Kagge's practical yet entertaining step-by-step guide shows readers how to get started in collecting art and how to find pieces that they will enjoy for many years, as well as how to identify and avoid pitfalls and deceptive temptations. Gestalten.tv met the first person to walk to the South Pole alone for an insightful interview at Gestalten...

In cooperation with Bonhams, one of the world\'s premier auctioneers of classic cars, Jared Zaugg has assembled a selection of iconic sports and race cars that go far beyond mere technical stats and gleaming chrome. Every page of \"Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!\" gives the reader a sense of the intensity of true automobile culture and reveals the stories behind some of the world\'s most breathtaking models. Gestalten.tv met Zaugg at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart and also spoke with...

Monocle has launched a new series of travel guide books for people who want to get the most out of their stay in a given city and feel like locals rather than tourists. To celebrate the publication of the first edition—London—Monocle has produced a cinematic portrait of this exciting metropolis. From great examples of urban design and lofty gardens to culinary discoveries and the best music venues, this film journeys to Monocle\'s favorite places in the city they call home. Published by...

Following today's intrepid adventurers, Gestalten's new book "The Great Wide Open" takes you on a visual journey to the most beautiful and breathtaking places in the world. Through the silent forests, infinite skies, and crystal waters, the photographs featured in the book capture the feeling of longing behind the growing search for a certain peacefulness that is lacking in our fast-paced lifestyles. Be part of this movement by joining a new generation of outsiders who have an unquenchable...

Founded in 2006, Behance.com is the world's largest creative network. Gestalten.tv met with its curatorial masterminds at its New York headquarters to find out why millions of people use Behance to showcase and discover inspiring work every day. We also took the opportunity to talk about the online phenomenon's very first book. Just released internationally by Gestalten, Super-Modified explores how classical approaches to art and design are being subverted, blurred, and reinvented by today's...

As founder and creative director of 5W Infographics and former art director of National Geographic Magazine from 2008 to 2014, Juan Velasco is one of the biggest names in information design today. While in Berlin last fall to lead a two-day Gestalten workshop, the data visualization expert sat down with Gestalten.tv to share his views on the difference between visual journalism and text-based reporting. He also explains the process behind his own rich yet clear narratives and points out some...

Dutch graphic designer Joost Grootens is an expert at filtering and translating complex data into visually compelling atlases with a narrative. Gestalten.tv met Grootens, who is program leader of the Master of Information Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven, during his recent two-day workshop at Gestalten Space. In our interview he offers some insight on how books—and atlases in particular—let us reach a better understanding of the changing world we live in by stemming the flood of images...

Gestalten.tv interviews the editor Gestalten's new publication, Original Man, to find out more about the inspiration and work behind the book. Very much an original man himself, the multitalented and charismatic menswear designer traces the fascination for stories of great men back to his early teens, explains how the sheer volume of reporting in the digital era has come to obscure the stories of the genuinely interesting, and stresses the value of the right photograph to accurately convey...

Gestalten's new book “The Map Design Toolbox” by Alexander Tibelius takes care of the hard work in map making. The book provides inspiration and a DVD with 640 ready-to-go vector files of not only continents, countries, and cities, but also compass roses, landmark buildings, place names, rivers, trees, and much more. This lets users concentrate on the fun part of maps, i.e. style and content, and worry less about technical execution. From Argentina to Zimbabwe, romantic Bretagne to Munich's...

In an interview with Gestalten.tv, editors of Berlin Wonderland: Wild Years Revisited 1990-1996, Anke Fesel and Chris Keller, set the scene and share some of the stories behind the rare images of a city that no longer exists in this form. Berlin then was a place of total freedom, but also of lawlessness and hooligans. A time when MiG 21 jets were re-appropriated for artistic purposes and squatted buildings secured with welded barricades. The video also provides a preview of the material from...