Haute Bohemians: Greece: Interiors, Architecture, and Landscapes

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This stunning volume chronicles Miguel Flores-Vianna’s photographic odyssey through the beautiful Greek landscape, showcasing historical houses alongside contemporary homes, united by the colorful characters who either live or have lived in these places—the “haute bohemians.”

Yes, the English know how to make their homes very comfortable and have a sense of humour that translates into their houses. There’s a certain irreverence but, at the same time, respect for many different things that live in a room together. The English are very good at putting rooms together with things that come from different places. I have witnessed a change in taste in general. In my late twenties I moved to New York and became an editor working for magazines that dealt with interior design. The taste from the 1990s till now has changed immensely, and my taste has changed immensely. The world has become less traditional and less layered and is less concerned with things that one should or should not do.

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I’m fascinated by the intimacy of going into people’s houses, as these are not like exhibition spaces or museums. You go into their bedrooms, their kitchens, into their private interiors, literally and symbolically. To what extent do you have to tread carefully? Do you have to gain people’s trust? Are they friends? Do they become friends in the process? Because you’re stepping a delicate dance in needing to reveal while also being respectful. So, it was your parents that started you off as a traveller! I get the impression that you’ve got a real ‘lightness of being’ – that you are very adaptable as you move from country to country? The homes of an extraordinary range of individuals are featured, from artists and interior designers to royalty and philanthropists. Among A land immortalized by poets for its otherworldly beauty, Greece is the birthplace of iconic monuments that are known the world over. Yet, at the same time, it is also home to an organic architectural language, the product of centuries of rural and island lifestyles—the heir both to the timelessness of classical architecture and the simplicity of rustic living.

Miguel Flores-Vianna, you didn’t want to leave the impression that Greece is just a country for holidays? A bit like a boat on the high seas because of the way the Leigh Fermors designed room after room facing both gardens and water, the house is constantly crisscrossed by winds, enveloped by the scents of the gardens and the forest around it. As he designed the house pretty much by instinct, one can safely say that Leigh Fermor must have had an innate understanding of proportion and balance, as well as a finely tuned sense of the theatrical. The building is not very large, yet it feels generous and expansive. The spirit of the Leigh Fermors gently haunts the space, giving it a sense of luxe, calme et volupté.

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The journey from Athens to Kardamyli is short in terms of time—just over four hours— but it is enormous in terms of the pivotal roles that some of the places along the road have played in the history of Greece and the development of Western culture. Along the way, one is entranced by the incredible beauty of the landscape, yet nothing prepares the traveler, on reaching the west coast of the Peloponnese, for the sight that awaits as the road descends from the heights of Mount Taygetus toward Kardamyli and the sea.

A glorious, intimate homage to this magical country from bestselling photographer and writer Miguel Flores-Vianna Sofka Zinovieff: Miguel, it seems to me what you do is remarkable, because it’s not just about beauty, it’s the way that you enter a house and engage with it as if you’re entering a psyche and revealing its secrets. And I wonder is that how you think about the process?

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This stunning volume chronicles Miguel Flores-Vianna’s photographic odyssey through the beautiful Greek landscape, showcasing historical houses alongside contemporary homes, united by the colorful characters who either live or have lived in these places—the “haute bohemians”.

In interior design, something like that has happened. The world has embraced other cultures much more openly and has embraced things like colour and patterns in a way that before was not so popular. We’re also realising that what we saw until recently as luxury now is really not so luxurious. There’s a new discovery of handicraft, of artisanal work. These things are changing constantly and I have witnessed that, but I come from Argentina where the writer Borges always used to say that not to change is not very smart. One has to change because nothing stays static. Time moves and things change. We live in a time of brutal consumerism. My aim for this book was not to feed the voracious appetites that simply want to devour pretty images of interiors or people’s private spaces, but rather to appeal to readers who aim to discover places like Greece through tasteful houses such as these, full of time and history. It did not matter whether they belonged to the rich or the poor, the unknown or the famous. I selected the ones whose spaces meant a lot to the owners, emotionally as well as symbolically. It is as if they are preserving them for future generations, not necessarily their children or grandchildren, but for those who will come after them, whoever they may be. I am moved by this sense that they are more like keepers than owners in the literal sense of the word. I ended up photographing residences whose owners were truly in love with their homes, and I felt that from the moment I crossed the threshold. I found myself falling in love with the houses too, so an entire world opened before me. I can’t take beautiful photographs unless I feel the charm of both the environment and those who inhabit it. I did not want to publish yet another book about wonderful summer homes in Greece. There are plenty of those available already, most of the books published about Greece are like that. So, I avoided this trap because I was interested in portraying houses that not only were alive all year round, but also, in their own way, managed to trace the amazing cultural and architectural wealth of the country, from North to South, and East to West. Everyone knows about the glory of classical antiquity, but they are not aware of the many vicissitudes that this country has gone through during its history, which I too discovered in depth while doing research for this book. English rooms are populated by a dichotomy of things that in American homes you would never find. There’s a certain disregard to personal comfort, they are not particularly concerned if the windows are draughty or not, which Americans are very much concerned about. The English know how to light rooms very well and they are different, but that doesn’t mean that they are better than any other amazing houses, other rooms.I think in my concept of what the ‘Haute Bohemian’ is, there isn’t the grand or the humble, the old or the new. An Haute Bohemian in my mind is someone who lives authentically, so someone who surrounds themselves with things they love and cherish. Some of these things may be very grand, some very humble. No, because there’s so much more to Greece than what you see during the summer. One of the conscious decisions was to also show some historical places which are part of the Greek psyche and which are not very well known to the outside world. For example, the home of a merchant who dealt with colour pigments in the 18th century, selling them to the Austrian empire. That house is in a village in the mountains in the north of Greece. It’s the first village that became a co-operative in the history of Europe, created by all the people who worked in the colour dye business who became extremely wealthy and decided that everybody should share that wealth. Yorgos Mavros built himself a palatial wooden and stone home, painted incredibly beautifully inside and today open to the public. I also show the house of Nikos Ghika in Corfu, one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen, this Arcadian palace of good taste and high art to which I’m very attracted. I have tried to use some historical places and then some of the houses are owned by either Greeks or foreigners who go to Greece, to different islands, because you cannot negate the fact that Greece is a huge destination in the summer.