A glorious, intimate homage to the magical country of Greece, from bestselling photographer and writer Miguel Flores-Vianna. Miguel Flores-Vianna, why did you fall in love with London? Is it because London is a very important place for houses? 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. 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 live or have lived in these places—the “haute bohemians”. In this book, you’re capturing the essence or the spirit of a house or specific place, but also of a country. Were you looking for a common factor, or were you just finding a lot of beautiful houses?

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. 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?

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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’m quite shy, so it’s easier to photograph a room than to photograph a person. When you stand in front of the person you’re going to photograph it’s quite an intimate act, and there are many more people who handle that much better than I do. The rooms that I photograph are extensions of the people who live in there. Rooms are part of your personality, of your culture, of who you are. If you let that room become you and furnish it with the things that you love, that you’re passionate about, that you have collected on trips, whether they’re expensive or very cheap, those kinds of rooms really fascinate me because they tell me a lot about the people who live there.

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—it is the heir both to the timelessness of classical architecture and the simplicity of rustic living. 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.Yes. If a house is authentic, your financial station in the world doesn’t matter. In this book I tell a story of when I was in in the Canary Islands with Min Hogg, who started the World of Interiors. I went there to photograph her house and then Min said to me, why don’t you stay one or two days more and I’ll show you the island. We spent a whole day driving around and seeing different places and at the end of that first day, she said to me, tomorrow I want to show you some houses. I was prepared to see grand Manor Houses, and the first house she took me to see was the house of her housekeeper. When we walked into the house, I realised why. It was a very humble house but it was done with an immense care of the aesthetics within the means of this person, and with a great sense of respect for whatever object this woman kept and for the few very simple things that she hung on the wall. The whole thing was absolutely beautiful. It was poetic and it reflected the woman. Authenticity gives rooms and spaces a sense of authority and poetry which moves me. Yes, all the books that I have published I’ve done the text because what you say with words can actually help the person looking at the picture understand why you are taking pictures that way and the mood of the place that they’re looking at. The mood is the soul. The light is the soul. Is it different to photograph for Architectural Digest or other magazines or to photograph for a book? 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. I love the way you go beyond the archetypal blue and white of Greece, and show that the palette of Greek colour is actually much wider. There are some bright greens and pinks, and terracotta red, which you bring out so well. One of my favourite pictures is of those rust-red sails on the loveliest old wooden boat, set against the blue sea. And you bring out this distinct colour in other places as well: in a house in Thessaly in its wall paintings and roof tiles, a kind of Knossos red that people don’t usually associate with Greece but that is absolutely Greek.

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? In Jasper Conran and Oisin Byrne’s Lindos home, the Sala—formerly the hub of the house—is never used. “This is where the magic lives,” explains Conran—the magic being the spirit, the genie in the bottle, that blesses the house and imbues it with a peace that allows for the comforting rhythm of a Mediterranean life, where friends, food, and beauty are always center stage. Conran and Byrne’s house is, in reality, two 500-year-old houses that were put together last century; the Sala is the grandest of the rooms, surrounded by a cluster of smaller ones and gardens. The homes of an extraordinary range of individuals are featured, from artists and interior designers to royalty and philanthropists. Among I’m not a portrait photographer because I am quite shy, and the relationship that you have to establish with a subject when you photograph a person is very intimate, even if it lasts two minutes. But I think I develop something like that with the rooms that I photograph. In a way I try to fall in love with them, because if I do then I will be able to portray them in their best light. So especially when I do a book, I end up falling in love with every single house, every single room. They all have a story. A glorious, intimate homage to this magical country from bestselling photographer and writer Miguel Flores-ViannaI 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. Every photographer who photographs interiors tries to photograph the mood of the place. I try to catch it at a time when perhaps the room is not as well-lit as when the sun is pouring in, because I try to capture the mood. That mood can vary according to the mood of the photographer and also the mood of the people who are letting you in. If you were to send me to photograph a house today and then you were going to send someone else to photograph it tomorrow, not only the images will be composed differently, but also the mood and the light will keep a patina in every frame. One room can be seen in different ways by different people. 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. The homes of an extraordinary range of individuals are featured, from artists and interior designers to royalty and philanthropists. Among them: