Villa San Spirito Croatia

This "modern farmhouse," designed by Steven Harris Architects and Rees Roberts + Partners, was named Interior Design magazine's Best of Year 2010 Residence. Rustic yet elegant, simple yet grand, the Villa San Spirito is a restoration of 15th century lime stone buildings high atop the Croatian Island Lopud off the Dalmatian Coast.

Adriatic Getaway by Steven Harris and Rees Roberts
Steven Harris Architects LLP
Rees Roberts + Partners LLC
Painter Lucien Rees Roberts
"True Life" by Steven Harris
Interior Design: Lucien Rees Roberts
Interior Design: Best of Year: Rural House

Hooper House II

In 1959 Marcel Breuer created a spectacularly long, low house of Maryland fieldstone in a wooded sanctuary outside of Baltimore. Known as Hooper House II, it features the "binuclear" concept of a central courtyard that separates public areas (living, dining, kitchen) from private spaces (six bedrooms and a family room). Hooper II is stringent Bauhaus; a masterful demarcation of taut planes and open plans using local, natural materials.

Dwell: Hooper House II
Hooper House II
Classic Courtyard House
Casa Hooper
Arch In Form
Going Beyond the Bauhaus

Paleolithic Decorators

Roaming across the walls of two vast underground chambers for thousands of years are over 400 beautifully hand-rendered animals, carbon dated to the Paleolithic Ice Age. They are the earliest art ever discovered, yet they cannot be called primitive. Such exquisite refinement, such economy of line. It's all there - the character, the behavior, the movement, in perfectly fresh and pristine condition after an unimaginable 30,000 to 32,000 years. These were interior decorators who knew their stuff. Experience their work through Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

The Cave of Chauvet
The Ice Age Art of Chauvet Cave
The Caves of France's Ardèche Gorge
Chauvet Cave
Archaeology: Chauvet Cave