Monocle Weekend
Edition: Saturday

Despite eyebrow-raising growth since starting in 2010, 25hours hotel group hasn’t strayed far from its Hamburg flagship for its latest property, which opens in March. The tasteful 49-room stopover is located in a former harbour master’s house in the German port city and joins the growing chain’s pretty premises in Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zürich. The brand’s aesthetic has struck a chord with business travellers across the German-speaking world and garnered fans for being less expensive than most competitors. “Five-star properties don’t tell stories anymore; now the big chains see they have a problem,” says CEO Christoph Hoffmann, one of the brand’s four owners. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the industry but one thing is certain: everybody is eager to create something more special and of a higher quality than in the past.”

With artistic showcases including the Material and Zona Maco art fairs drawing droves of global art collectors to Mexico City, the first week of February has felt like an unofficial art week in the Mexican capital. To round things off, one of the largest private repositories of contemporary art in Latin America, the Museo Jumex, is hosting the second edition of the Index Art Book Fair, which continues this weekend. The annual celebration of print brings together more than 70 publishers and independent titles from home and abroad. The public can also get involved in roundtable discussions and workshops to glean insights from the industry’s most innovative thinkers, including Cay Sophie Rabinowitz from New York’s Osmos art magazine. The fair is yet another symbol of the city’s multifaceted ascent in the realms of design and culture.

Daido Moriyama, the godfather of Japanese street photography (and that is something worth being the don of), wraps up his last decade of new work in Paris this weekend at the beautiful purpose-built Montparnasse glasshouse that is Fondation Cartier. Moriyama’s favoured black-and-white slips into colour for this new show that seems to revel in reality rather than signposting symbolism; “Colour describes what I meet without any filters,” says the artist. TV close-ups, mesh tights, Harajuku-pink lip gloss, sex and suggestion grab the eyeballs, while tired carpeted foyers and painted-over posters tell of a Tokyo in constant transit. When will it stop? When Daido lays down his camera.

Many yearn for the chance to experience the lauded fare from Copenhagen’s Noma, voted best restaurant in the world on four separate occasions. Now Brooklynites are one step closer as the restaurant’s co-founder, Claus Meyer, has launched a Saturday pop-up of his Danish pastry-shop concept Meyers Bageri. Williamsburg’s authentic French bakery Margo Patisserie will transform on weekends until Meyer takes over completely in the spring. Today’s pop-up selection includes traditional flaky pastries with chocolate icing and vanilla cream, whole grain rye bread, wheat loaves and morning buns that come buttered with jam or cheese, as well as pastries with cinnamon swirls or poppy seeds.

Alongside the team behind Monocle 24’s ‘The Urbanist’, we’re trekking through a metropolitan maze as we explore how cities are depicted on screen. We hear from ‘Detroit Free Press’ on how its city has been given the cinematic treatment, while much-praised film-maker Mark Cousins discusses his relationship with Belfast ahead of his upcoming artistic documentary. Plus: secrets and myths behind the closed doors of New York’s Dakota building.

To celebrate the recent launch of Monocle’s first Kioskafé in Paddington, we talk to editor in chief Tyler Brûlé about the concept and branding and the enduring appeal of print.