Monocle Weekend
Edition: Saturday

Frieze, the art world’s flying circus, descends on London on 5 October like an alternately tasteful and gaudy storm. The city’s broader art scene also becomes a solar system in which galleries, auction houses and one-off shows are warmed by the Frieze rays. At Unit 9 in Shoreditch, Alice Anderson’s “Between Surfaces” is a powerful show born from the French artist’s intense methodology of tightly wrapping mundane objects in fine copper wire. James Brett’s Gallery of Everything shows the work of radical, quotable, unreliable Bob Parks – impish and involving in equal measure. Meanwhile Gagosian presents Brice Marden’s new work: there’s something both organic and church-like in these large, dark canvases that are an exercise in authority and control. Tune in to Monocle 24 for interviews and insight from Frieze week.

Few superlatives seem to cut through the hype surrounding the River Café in London and its reputation as one of the world’s finest Italian restaurants. So you’ll just have to take our word for it. Now the Hammersmith institution’s latest book (a celebration of chef Ruth Rodgers’ 30th year in business entitled simply River Café 30) takes a design-minded, typographical turn compared to its library of indispensable cookbooks. Inside are 30 sumptuous recipes from pastas to salads, soups and sweets, plus snippets of mementos gathered during this venerable Thames-side haunt’s three-decade romp to global renown.

Manhattan’s Moma is delving into the world of fashion: from tomorrow it will launch Items: Is Fashion Modern? It’s a look at 111 articles of clothing and accessories that have had a profound effect on the world over the past century. Occupying the entire sixth floor of the museum – and running until the end of January – the exhibition looks at the way these items, from a baseball cap to a pair of stonewashed jeans, have influenced pop culture. And in case ogling all those design classics makes you want to whip out your wallet, the museum’s Design Store will be selling limited-edition products inspired by the show.

The news that architect Vann Molyvann died this week has given Cambodians pause for thought. The designer harmonised modernist rigour with the rich vocabulary of Khmer architecture and the apogee of his style was an Olympic stadium built in 1964. Molyvann lived in exile during the bloody years of the Khmer Rouge regime but upon his return to Cambodia in the 1990s he watched as concrete disrupted the clean lines that he had tried to etch into Phnom Penh’s housing stock. Despite this, Molyvann’s legacy lives on in the form of projects that aim to document and preserve his work, as well as young architects taking design notes from the master himself. We recommend The Man Who Built Cambodia, an elegant tour-de-force documentary directed by Christopher Rompré, released last year.

Film critic Jason Solomons reviews some of this week’s film releases, including Goodbye Christopher Robin and Brimstone.

Munich manages to have one foot in the old world and another firmly planted in the new – and that's part of its undeniable charm. Monocle's travel guide will help you navigate this cross-section of history and modernity and point you in the direction of our favourite emerging hotels, lively kitchens serving Bavarian classics and the best places to grab your culture fix.