Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Midcentury Designers
by Leslie Williamson (Rizzoli, 2010)

Leslie Williamson’s Handcrafted Modern is more than a book of interiors—it’s an intimate archive of the homes and studios of some of the most celebrated midcentury designers. Published by Rizzoli in 2010, it takes us inside the personal worlds of icons like Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, and Russel Wright, capturing not only the spaces they lived in but the philosophies that shaped them.

What makes this book remarkable is its quiet observation. Instead of polished, staged interiors, Williamson documents the lived-in reality of these environments—tools resting on a workbench, a patina that reveals daily rituals, light falling across wood that has been shaped by both hand and time. The homes become self-portraits: testaments to the designers’ values, their relationship to material, and the merging of life and work.

For anyone working with craft, design, or storytelling, Handcrafted Modern serves as a reminder that spaces hold narratives. The rooms are not simply decorated; they are built around process, function, and an almost spiritual respect for making. Reading through, you feel an urge to slow down, to consider how the objects we live with are tied to who we are.

In today’s climate of fast design and constant churn, this book feels almost radical in its patience. It presents a model of creativity rooted in presence, care, and continuity—less about trend, more about lasting resonance. It’s an invitation to think of our homes and studios as living archives of our values, where the boundary between craft and life dissolves.