Few modern buildings embody such modernist beauty and mythical magic as Casa Malaparte, designed by the Italian poet and novelist Curzio Malaparte in 1937 as a home for himself, and later made famous by Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot. "No place in Italy has such a wide horizon to stare at, nor such a depth of feeling," wrote Malaparte of the locale in Capri where he erected the Casa. "A site only for strong men and for free spirits.… Here, in this wilderness, I am the first one who will build a house."
Karl Lagerfeld visited the site for five days in November 1997 and took a series of Polaroids, which he subsequently transferred to Arches moldmade paper. First published in 1999 (and later as a slipcased edition with House in the Trees), this beautifully printed book is now made available again as a single-volume edition.