7 WONDERS: ILSE CRAWFORD

These days she is best known as the designer behind Soho House in New York and the Olde Bell Inn near Maidenhead. Before that she was a pioneering magazine editor, at Elle Deco and Bare. Ilse Crawford talks to Rebecca Willis about the seven wonders of her world ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Autumn 2008

HOTEL: Wolwedans, Namibia
One of the most inspiring hotels I have visited is Wolwedans safari camp in the sand dunes of the Namibian desert. An integral part of the NamibRand Nature Reserve, it is idealistic, pragmatic and sustainable. It is idealistic in that the staff are all local and are trained in astrology, botany, geology and ecology so that they are genuinely inspiring guides. It is pragmatic in that it has comfy cabins as well as walks through the desert that end with nights spent under the stars. And it is sustainable because it uses solar energy and has a light carbon footprint.

VIEW: From my studio, London
My studio is on the top floor in Great Guildford Street near the Tate Modern, and there are windows on three sides, so we have the sky, which gives infinity, and also the detail of the constant life of the dynamic city of London. It's an urban landscape, and I love the messiness of the buildings around, with lots of roofs of completely different characters; we can see the big wheel, too, as well as fat pigeons strutting their stuff. The light is fantastic, and I need light in order to work; when I lived in a Georgian flat, I couldn't see properly to work.

BUILDING: Stepwells, India
Stepwells, the stone cisterns which are found mostly in western India, are such an amazing combination of beauty and practicality. They contain and measure water which, being scarce, is sacred. Built between the fifth and the 19th centuries, they are architecturally exquisite and they are a place for drinking, bathing, washing and socialising--a perfect integration of form and function. I'm currently working on a book about water with Jane Withers and an exhibition (which ran at Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium, earlier this autumn). We need to rethink its role in our lives today.

BEACH: In front of the Tate Modern, London
I don't do sunny beaches--I'm too white! I like windswept beaches where nature comes right up to the sea (Holkham and Studland), but I am choosing the one in front of the Tate Modern on the Thames, where people are still doing what they have always done--finding stuff. Historically, "mudlarks" (often but not always children) scavenged in the mud and found things to use or sell. In poorer societies people naturally recycle--it's part of the economy--but I find it fascinating that even though in theory the waste economy has disappeared here, people carry on doing it. Every day there are a dozen or so people looking for treasure, and they find it (old coins and bits of pottery) because the river was such a centre of activity--it was a forest of masts at one time.

WORK OF ART: "Dust Motes Dancing in the Sunbeams"
A cracker of a title, this one. Vilhelm Hammershoi's paintings are moving studies of light and life which somehow feel very modern although they were painted over a century ago. I love the way he brings such sensitivity and wonder to the very familiar things of home: the way light enters windows, non-spaces such as entrance halls, the views through rooms. He makes the ordinary extraordinarily beautiful. In shades of grey he focused on his immediate environment and gave it huge emotional power. He has been an influence on many film-makers. The show at the Royal Academy this summer was much overdue. (It ran until September 7th, then moved to the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, where it stays until December 7th.)

CITY: Stockholm
I've spent a lot of time in Stockholm recently. It is a great mix of all the things that make cities exciting--people, ideas, culture, hipness--and nature is very close by. The city and nature are much more integrated than in London (an architect might go off to an island and chop wood at weekends, for instance)--partly because of the scale, but also because of the way people are, slightly puritanical and straightforward. It's not the most hedonistic city, but I think I could live there. It is very balanced: few cities give you the chance to be physical and cerebral at the same time; but we are part of nature, and a body requires both.

JOURNEY: Cartagena to Baru, Colombia, by boat
I'm married to a Colombian and his uncle lives on the island of Baru. It is over an hour by boat from Cartagena--a surreal city, built by the Spanish in the midst of the jungle on this tropical coast, a triumph of the imagination. It is no wonder Gabriel García Márquez chooses to live there. The boat passes between two towers at the mouth of the harbour, which used to have a chain between them to stop British ships entering, and you head out to sea where there are huge waves. You can either hire a boat, or get the city boat which is crowded and low in the water and goes early in the morning before the waves get too big. Scary but amazing.

Picture credit: Agenda (top), Stephen Bruckner (right)

(Rebecca Willis is an Associate Editor at Intelligent Life. See previous "7 Wonders" interviews with Belinda Earl, chief executive of Jaeger, and Carlos Ghosn, chief executive at Renault.)