Design for living – in the country

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What is the great pull of the countryside for city dwellers?

The Way We Live: In the Country by Stafford Cliff and Gilles De Chabaneix

Stafford Cliff was formerly creative director of the Conran Design Group, while Gilles de Chabaneix is one of France’s leading lifestyle photographers; together they provide a tantalizing source book of ideas on country life.  While de Chabaneix’s images are instantly seductive, Cliff’s chapter introductions and picture captions are full of insights about the joys of nature and the reasons people choose to abandon the city.  While exploring such obvious delights as the solitude, quiet, quality of light, local produce and the changing seasons, Cliff also discusses intangibles: the ideal landscape, the organic evolution of rural villages and the way human intervention – such as paths, lanes and even highways – can embellish the natural environment. 

With images ranging from Cotswold pubs to Swedish forests, from Australian vineyards to Mallorcan estates, from cutting-edge glass houses in California to ancient Tuscan hill farms and Corsican villages, this book celebrates the timeless joys of living in the land.  As modernist minimalism echoes ancient simplicity, traditional and contemporary approaches are treated with equal respect; indeed, as this book makes abundantly clear, the key feature of rural life, whether in Europe, Asia or America, in the 17th or the 21st century, is the centrality of the landscape itself. 

The Way We Live: In the Country  by Stafford Cliff and Gilles De Chabaneix is published by Thames and Hudson, 2014.  256 pp., 300 colour illus, £12.95 pbk. ISBN: 978 0 500 291368