Sydney Modern: Living in Sydney - Taschen specials

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

If it's a social documentary on life in Australia's premier city that you're after, this is not the book for you. This is purely the stuff of aspiration, bordering on fantasy, though these are in fact 24 real homes, immaculately photographed to reveal the large, cool, elegant interiors and top-dollar real-estate waterfront views. But the architects and style leaders who inhabit such desirable places do seem to exist on a different plane from ordinary mortals whose lives tend to get cluttered with old newspapers, children's toys and mismatched and worn furniture. They could be almost anywhere in the design-conscious world, these modernist palaces with their global design influences from Japan, the Bauhaus, Sweden and America: bleached-pebble gardens, vast pieces of abstract art, glass floors and artful blend of neutral tones, natural materials and lovingly cared-for classic furniture, and retro curtains, lamps and ceramics.... The local flavour is provided by sheer glass walls looking out over turquoise water dotted with white sailing boats, the way the outdoors is incorporated into the living space (a sparkling swimming pool right up against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the living area in one house, a patio with a distinctly Japanese reflecting pool in the central courtyard) and one artfully placed surfboard next to a bookcase. All, whether new houses or conversions of existing buildings, are planned to make the most of the wonderful natural light, too, and the sunshine floods in onto acres of miraculously dust-free surfaces. There is the odd tantalizing glimpse of the designers and owners of these immaculately harmonious dwellings, but the houses are the stars. The text, which runs to nothing more taxing than extended captions in three languages (English, French and German) speaks, in the way architectural writing does, of 'solutions' involving 'rationalization of the living areas' and identifying the Werner Panton lamps and Mies van der Rohe furniture, but does not go into much detail. Sometimes the cost of the project is given, but as the German version is in pre-Euro Austrian schillings, the figures are probably already far enough out of date to be no reliable guide if you were planning a Sydney style-fest of your own. All you need to know about cutting-edge living in Sydney is in Giorgio Possenti's photographs - and one thing is glaringly obvious: you can start by chucking out the chintz. (Kirkus UK)