A Spirit of Place: The Village House

This is not really a book about a house, nor is it a book about an architect and his work. It is a book about a place in Gujarat, India.

The place is called the Village House, but it is actually a village, a village of houses and gardens. It is a secluded retreat, and both the architecture and the landscape are self-referential, but never self-indulgent.

It is an idealised village, at once a humble place and a beautiful place. And most of all, it has a spirit of place, inspired by a creative process that combined intuition and spontaneity with calculated calibration.

The architect for this wonderful project was Hiren Patel.

The book is a piece of art itself, with Patel’s watercolours sharing the pages with lush colour photographs.

Written and photographed by Patrick Bingham-Hall

Dimensions: 210 x 210 (square) Hardback

Extent: 96pp

Date of publication: November 2019

ISBN: 978-981-4428-07-1