How did so much beauty and ingenuity come to be found in everyday objects of rural life in Portugal? How did these objects manage to so skillfully combine functionality and formal perfection? "The Hard Life" by Jasper Morrison is a picture book featuring photographs of objects from the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal.
The book examines how generations of trial and error, individual craftsmanship, and the instinct to extract the essentials with minimal means produced objects that made life in a pre-industrial society livable and meaningful. The objects, photographed and described by designer Jasper Morrison, captivate both with their beauty and their role as models for design in its purest form.
"The Hard Life" continues Morrison's homage to the everyday and opens up a new perspective on his design philosophy. It is a tribute to the beauty of antique everyday objects.

Author(s): Jasper Morrison
Design: Jasper Morrison and Integral Lars Müller
22 × 30 cm, 8 ½ × 11 ¾ in
208 pages, 188 illustrations
hardback
2017, 978-3-03778-514-0
Text English