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FROM THE EDITOR It is high
from Xxccghiuy
from the editor
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I’ ve always thought of myselfasthebig-citytype. Having grown up in, what was at the time, a small seaside town in the early 2000s, the siren song of which is why we decided to look outward – way outward – and bring you the best of what lies beyond the highways and skyscrapers of our everyday. As it turns out, sometimes you have to leave your
CapeTown (a sprawling metropolis comfort zone to find what real by comparison) was impossible comfort means. to ignore. A heady mix of the Of course, there is more to energy, freedom, opportunity and country living than a hyggeanonymity that only a big city can centric collection of forested log offer, it presented a chance to carve cabins, crackling fireplaces and out an identity independent of piping hot cocoa with homemade everything I had known hitherto. biscuits (do not worry, we have
A pretty standard, Hallmark- still got these covered). It is about movie plot line, sure, but it is mine. changing your urban state of mind.
Fast forward 15 years and Frank Lloyd Wright said it most something has started changing succinctly: “No house should be on in me. Specifically, in my love a hill or anything. It should be of affair with the city. And if these the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and feelings of doubt were ephemeral house should live together, each and noncommittal before, they happier for the other. ” have certainly been crystallised I think this could be seen by the pandemic and I cannot through the lens of a broader, help thinking: is big city living current ideology – one I wish we everything we have built it up had had when Wright wrote those to be? words in the early ’30s – around
If, like me, you have been sustainability and symbiosis, experiencing this yearning for rather than the need to impose a (perhaps a bit idealistic) life in our architecture – and presence the country, then this issue has – on the world, without thought arrived in your hands just in time. of consequence. This type of
Traditionally, this is the time of conscientious modus operandi year the team at House & Garden is certainly more prevalent here, produce a big, winter-focus issue in these country homes and with but, as we all know, there is nothing these country designers, than with
‘traditional’ about our lives their city cousins. And we should anymore, no matter the season, all be taking note.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
