Customer Reviews

Country Houses of Sweden

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a beautifully presented publication. Its padded hard cover and thick paper quality are matched by excellent colour photographs.

The choices of homes is good: from palaces to simple country cottages. The text for each home is limited because of space for translation into French and German, but its gives a personal background to each building and interior.

It has none of the frilly interiors or silly text that often accompanies the English versions of Scandinavian interior books.

It is an excellent companion to The Swedish Room, which gives a more comprehensive historical perspective.

Not long after I checked this book out from the library, I was wild to own it!
The first reviewer is right -- these are not "cutesy" or "quaint" old houses. In poring
over the many, many rooms and homes included in this volume, I felt I gained some understanding of
Scandinavian design in general. [the following is overly-enthusiastic and probably painful for those who are truly knowledgeable]

Many of the styles represented can be described as spare, simple and unpretentious. The clean lines of this aesthetic seemed to me to border on the exquisite. Not just "form follows function," though. Ranging from an artist's colorful, almost eccentric home to the all-white interior of a flat in a centuries-old stone building: almost all of the examples chosen show a strong sense of place and time, and a sensitive and respectful response to the design and nature of the house.