China Style [Hardcover]

Sharon Leece (Author), Michael Freeman (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

Chinese interior design is a kaleidoscope of competing influences: scholarly gardens versus opium dens, imperial palaces battling concrete-and-steel high rises, rural simplicity fighting urban chaos, cultural-revolutionary cotton up against rich imperial silks, the list goes on and on. China Style looks at interiors that draw from this vivid and powerful tradition. With photographer Michael Freeman and author Sharon Leece, visit formal, more traditional metropolitan apartments featuring priceless antique furniture, see examples of Shanghai Art Deco and the unique Peranakan shop house, as well as modern manifestations of China Style—clubs sumptuously furnished with glittering fabrics and Chinese design motifs, minimalistic glass houses, restaurants in with a cultural-revolution flair, the China doll interior, and many more. Photographed in locations as diverse as Shanghai and Anhui in China, New York and Minneapolis in the USA, in Hong Kong, Singapore and other Southeast Asian destinations, China Style includes many homes, hotels, restaurants and shops that have never been photographed before, and shows how Chinese tradition is constantly being reinterpreted to produce a fresh and dynamic style of contemporary design.

Contents: Search for Simplicity; Shanghai Style; Modern Grandeur; Ming Elegance; Scholarly Living; Rediscovering Roots; Provincial Style; Decorative Living

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Relying on contemporary Chinese commercial and domestic interiors, primarily in Hong Kong and Shanghai, this work presents a sophisticated urban interpretation of Chinese design style. The designs range widely, with some incorporating pieces of Chinese furniture and decorative accessories and others drawing on historic Chinese domestic style. For large interior design collections.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The next best thing to an 18-hour flight to the Far East could be viewing the 36 different spaces here that have China written all over them. Text becomes superfluous to the brilliantly colored photographs (from Michael Freeman) that show personal and commercial interiors in, for the most part, New York, London, California, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In fact, this resembles "lifestyles of the rich and famous," because many of the antiques and accessories pictured, from Tibetan carpets to Ming furniture, are now astronomically priced. Nonetheless, the more than five periods--Ming and Qlng, Chinoiserie Old and New, the new Shanghai style, and China Modern--though not radically distinctive, do showcase a new way to look at design, with balance, order, and harmony valued above all else. And in conclusion, journalist Leece tries to give tips, through product photographs, about achieving a China-style look. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Periplus Editions Ltd. (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 962593457X
• ISBN-13: 978-9625934570
• Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,955,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Photos, So-so Text, July 28, 2002

By 

Jeffery Steele (Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: China Style (Hardcover)

This is an enjoyable book introducing many different places -- mostly residential, but also some hotels and restaurants -- with a variety of Chinese designs.

The best part of the book is the photography by Michael Freeman. In most of the rooms he captures a feeling that it's lived in, a part of someone's daily life. Some books I own on Asian design don't have this quality: the rooms either appear too staged or the photographer gives them a sterile feeling. I could recommend this book on the photos alone.

The text is not quite up to standards of the photos, but it's acceptable. The author, Sharon Leece, obviously knows her subject, but she often lapses into blurb-style. For example, she writes on one house: "The words colourful, extravagent, and opulent can hardly begin to describe the palatial home of Contrasts Gallery owner Pearl Lam."

Another fun aspect of this book is that the places it showcases aren't just the homes of wealthy individuals. You see not only the more than 13,000 square foot Manhattan apartment of Chinese antiquities dealer Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, with its numerous expensive Chinese antiques, but you also get to see how some people with obviously much smaller budgets still managed to design their home with a unique Chinese flavor.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely book for collectors and anyone interested in China, December 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: China Style (Hardcover)

Reading this was a pleasant surprise, but what impresses most about this beautifully-designed book is not that it opens up all the elements of Chinese style and how its used in modern living -which it does in a interesting way.
But that it includes homes of most of the foremost China antiques dealers/collectors in the world.
Probably for the first time ever in print, we can see photographs of the homes of China experts Grace Wu Bruce in Hong Kong, Robert Ellsworth in New York (his is the biggest single apartment in Manhattan, apparently) and Kai-Yin Lo in Hong Kong.
That this book features their private homes shows they must have given their backing to this book - making it more than another stunning Style book.
Overall, this is a luxurious, well put-together book with an
interesting selection of beautiful apartments from many Cities. Recommended for anyone interested in things Chinese.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rich, but in the same kind of room, November 1, 2005

By 

Lupo Montegrigio (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: China Style (Hardcover)

A wide range of (mostly) rather luxurious rooms filled with everything and anything Chinese. But you won't find much of authentic traditional chinese homes here (and indeed the dustjacket clearly announces this). Although the rooms are sometimes packed with Chinese things, they almost all still feel western/international/chinese, mixed in different proportions. That said, the photos are great and it's a joy to visit all these apartements and houses and select your favourites. Since each place only gets two (or three) spreads generally, a string of different locations can be presented and you're invited to more rooms and settings than anyone can digest at one read-through. And that's great, you can return again and again to this very rich book.