Picturesque Scandinavian archipelagos and extra-long summer days create the perfect environment for dreamy homes. Summer houses that blend smoothly into their surroundings help us reconnect with and merge into nature. But even in the long, dark winters, these homes must be destined to withstand exceptional weather conditions. The main features of these houses are the abundance of light, large windows and free, minimalist interiors. This selection of 40 stunning houses defines a perfect summer escape for those Scandinavian days that seem to last forever and, at the same time, an ideal place to spend the long winter days.

Between 1924 and 1936, Austrian-born architect Josef Frank built five holiday homes on the Falsterbo Peninsula in southern Sweden. Conceived as summer houses for friends and relatives of Frank’s Swedish wife, the Falsterbo Villas constitute a key part of Frank’s architectural work and demonstrate the principles at the core of his housing designs. In 2016, Villa Carlsten, the smallest of the Falsterbo houses, underwent an extensive restoration.

Published on the occasion of its completion, Josef Frank: Villa Carlsten is the first book to comprehensively document the building. As with all of Frank’s housing designs, Villa Carlsten sees the architect paying special attention to the connection between interior and exterior, to the availability of daylight, and to inhabitants’ movements through the building. A particular part of Villa Carlsten’s charm is its scale, as everything is of slightly smaller dimensions than one would expect. Despite its intricate layout, however, Villa Carlsten is also one of Frank’s most accessible homes, and the design is full of wit, combining comfort with modern refinement.

Beautifully designed with seventy-five full-colour photographs by Mikael Olsson, who adeptly highlights the home’s qualities and relationship with its surroundings, the book also includes an essay by Mikael Bergquist, who realised the renovation and places Villa Carlsten in context with the other Falsterbo Villas and Frank’s broader work.