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The See-Through House
*Chosen as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*
The See-Through House is a book about saying goodbye to a much-loved family home. It is also a very funny account of looking after an adored yet maddening parent and a piercing portrait of the grief that followed his death.
Shelley Klein grew up in the Scottish Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid; with colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art.
Shelley’s father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style. As a child, Shelley and her siblings adored both the house and the fashion shows that took place there, but as she grew older Shelley also began to rebel against her father’s excessive design principles.
Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision. As Shelley installs her pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill, he insists she take them into her bedroom to ensure they don’t ‘spoil the line of the house’.
Threaded through Shelley’s book is her father’s own story: an Orthodox Jewish childhood in Yugoslavia; his rejection of rabbinical studies to pursue a life of art; his arrival in post-war Britain and his imagining of a house filled with light and colour as interpreted by the architect Peter Womersley.
A book about the search for belonging and the pain of letting go, The See-Through House is a moving memoir of one man's distinctive way of looking at the world, told with tenderness and humour and a daughter’s love.
The See-Through House is a book about saying goodbye to a much-loved family home. It is also a very funny account of looking after an adored yet maddening parent and a piercing portrait of the grief that followed his death.
Shelley Klein grew up in the Scottish Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid; with colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art.
Shelley’s father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style. As a child, Shelley and her siblings adored both the house and the fashion shows that took place there, but as she grew older Shelley also began to rebel against her father’s excessive design principles.
Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision. As Shelley installs her pots of herbs on the kitchen windowsill, he insists she take them into her bedroom to ensure they don’t ‘spoil the line of the house’.
Threaded through Shelley’s book is her father’s own story: an Orthodox Jewish childhood in Yugoslavia; his rejection of rabbinical studies to pursue a life of art; his arrival in post-war Britain and his imagining of a house filled with light and colour as interpreted by the architect Peter Womersley.
A book about the search for belonging and the pain of letting go, The See-Through House is a moving memoir of one man's distinctive way of looking at the world, told with tenderness and humour and a daughter’s love.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2020
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330 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
August 15, 2021
A different take on the grief memoir: Klein’s book charts her relationship with her father and her childhood home - a 1958 modernist building named High Sunderland in the Scottish Borders which was like an additional family member due to her father’s almost obsessive relationship with the house and maintaining its form as a piece of art.
The old adage is that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and whilst Beri Klein was not an Englishman he had made Britain his home since the mid 20th Century, and High Sunderland was his sanctuary. Klein was a textile designer, trained in Leeds after a tumultuous childhood and teenage years, and his fabrics were used by all sorts of designers including Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel, but also by high street stores like Marks and Spencer. Inspired by nature and the world around him, his home was an extension of his art - however we learn from his daughter that whilst this made for a unique place to grow up it wasn’t always ideal. As an adult she moved back into the house after her mother’s death to look after her ailing father, and the book covers this period of reflection on her own and her father’s lives, and the impact their unique home had on both.
A very enjoyable read, and one I’d recommend to those interested in modernist architecture, family relationships or memoirs.
The old adage is that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and whilst Beri Klein was not an Englishman he had made Britain his home since the mid 20th Century, and High Sunderland was his sanctuary. Klein was a textile designer, trained in Leeds after a tumultuous childhood and teenage years, and his fabrics were used by all sorts of designers including Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel, but also by high street stores like Marks and Spencer. Inspired by nature and the world around him, his home was an extension of his art - however we learn from his daughter that whilst this made for a unique place to grow up it wasn’t always ideal. As an adult she moved back into the house after her mother’s death to look after her ailing father, and the book covers this period of reflection on her own and her father’s lives, and the impact their unique home had on both.
A very enjoyable read, and one I’d recommend to those interested in modernist architecture, family relationships or memoirs.
May 25, 2020
This book is one that weaves little memories that intersects with snippets of hard facts and small worlds of emotion. We often feel nostalgia for moments in our past, but in this book’s case, I experienced second-hand nostalgia, something I didn’t know could exist.
The fluid writing style makes it so that the book progresses at a steady pace without being a bore. Books are meant to transport us away from the miseries of reality, and it was a wonderful feeling to be able to steal into the slivers of memories in this book. The book is captivating so that reading it feels like stepping through a window into another world and another time, filled with modernist houses constructed of glass and colours that hold a multitude of possibilities. It felt as if I were there, a silent observer throughout Beri’s past, present and future.
This book has two cores: the See-Through House, and Beri. Modernist houses have always seemed to me to be all marble and glass, minimalism and straight lines. It was all rather rigid and to some extent, I thought, dead. But is it necessarily so? The See-Through House is one of these modernist houses, but this book allowed me to see beyond the structure of the house, encouraging me to see that the life that went on inside the See-Through House that was no less vivid than my own. I saw that the house is a setting, and it is the people who live in it who breathe the life into a house.
Before reading this book, I had no idea who Bernat Klein was. After reading it, I don’t know all the nitty-bitty details about him, and honestly, I don’t have to. Instead, what I’ve gained is his daughter, Shelley Klein’s memory of him. It may not be my memories, but through this book, Shelley Klein kindly gives readers a glimpse of how she saw her father. In doing so, we are able to visualise the lively, brilliant man that is Bernat Klein, and we are able to imagine our own connections with those around us.
Received in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley Random House UK, Vintage, and Shelley Klein for the chance to read this book.
From Words & Nocturnes
The fluid writing style makes it so that the book progresses at a steady pace without being a bore. Books are meant to transport us away from the miseries of reality, and it was a wonderful feeling to be able to steal into the slivers of memories in this book. The book is captivating so that reading it feels like stepping through a window into another world and another time, filled with modernist houses constructed of glass and colours that hold a multitude of possibilities. It felt as if I were there, a silent observer throughout Beri’s past, present and future.
This book has two cores: the See-Through House, and Beri. Modernist houses have always seemed to me to be all marble and glass, minimalism and straight lines. It was all rather rigid and to some extent, I thought, dead. But is it necessarily so? The See-Through House is one of these modernist houses, but this book allowed me to see beyond the structure of the house, encouraging me to see that the life that went on inside the See-Through House that was no less vivid than my own. I saw that the house is a setting, and it is the people who live in it who breathe the life into a house.
Before reading this book, I had no idea who Bernat Klein was. After reading it, I don’t know all the nitty-bitty details about him, and honestly, I don’t have to. Instead, what I’ve gained is his daughter, Shelley Klein’s memory of him. It may not be my memories, but through this book, Shelley Klein kindly gives readers a glimpse of how she saw her father. In doing so, we are able to visualise the lively, brilliant man that is Bernat Klein, and we are able to imagine our own connections with those around us.
Received in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley Random House UK, Vintage, and Shelley Klein for the chance to read this book.
From Words & Nocturnes
December 3, 2025
Well this was the strangest reading experience I have to say.
My enjoyment of the book came from the design aspects; I love Bauhaus type design and the mid century modern Frank Lloyd Wright-esque buildings. I found the history of the design and building of the house really interesting and loved the photographs (though I wish there were more). Thankfully there are more on the Modern House website at https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list...
The reading I didn't so much enjoy was Shelley's "grief journal". It really disturbed me if I'm honest. Her father no doubt had a difficult upbringing and terrible tragedy befell his family in 2nd world war Europe as Jews, but it sounds like her father was a complete tyrant! She writes about him as if she idolised him and it's almost as if she has a Stockholm Syndrome type of admiration for the man. He burned her coat on a fire in the garden because he didn't like the design! He forced her to play in a playhouse out in the arse-end of some woods by their house because he didn't like the clutter! He sounds like he was domineering and tyrannical, refusing any family member to "clutter up" the house with clothes, belongings or evidence of life! No food or flowers in the kitchen, no coats on hangers in the hall. What a sterile environment! He would constantly interfere with the mother's cooking while her back was turned in the kitchen. He sounds like a nightmare of a person to be truthful and it's as if Shelley can't separate the brilliance of "the artist Bernat Klein" from the very mediocre-sounding human dad that he was. That she bothered to go and stay with him at all when he was old is testament to her patience. I know the book's title is "My Father in Full Colour" but barely anything is mentioned of her mother and two siblings, almost as if they didn't exist in comparison to her father's "brilliance". This really wore on me after a while, the constant exaltation and reverence of this oppressive man who made a house a show-house instead of a home.
If there was just the design I would have been buzzing and this would have been a 5 star book for me. As it was, 3 stars at the most.
My enjoyment of the book came from the design aspects; I love Bauhaus type design and the mid century modern Frank Lloyd Wright-esque buildings. I found the history of the design and building of the house really interesting and loved the photographs (though I wish there were more). Thankfully there are more on the Modern House website at https://themodernhouse.com/sales-list...
The reading I didn't so much enjoy was Shelley's "grief journal". It really disturbed me if I'm honest. Her father no doubt had a difficult upbringing and terrible tragedy befell his family in 2nd world war Europe as Jews, but it sounds like her father was a complete tyrant! She writes about him as if she idolised him and it's almost as if she has a Stockholm Syndrome type of admiration for the man. He burned her coat on a fire in the garden because he didn't like the design! He forced her to play in a playhouse out in the arse-end of some woods by their house because he didn't like the clutter! He sounds like he was domineering and tyrannical, refusing any family member to "clutter up" the house with clothes, belongings or evidence of life! No food or flowers in the kitchen, no coats on hangers in the hall. What a sterile environment! He would constantly interfere with the mother's cooking while her back was turned in the kitchen. He sounds like a nightmare of a person to be truthful and it's as if Shelley can't separate the brilliance of "the artist Bernat Klein" from the very mediocre-sounding human dad that he was. That she bothered to go and stay with him at all when he was old is testament to her patience. I know the book's title is "My Father in Full Colour" but barely anything is mentioned of her mother and two siblings, almost as if they didn't exist in comparison to her father's "brilliance". This really wore on me after a while, the constant exaltation and reverence of this oppressive man who made a house a show-house instead of a home.
If there was just the design I would have been buzzing and this would have been a 5 star book for me. As it was, 3 stars at the most.
September 5, 2021
I enjoyed this because I am interested in Bernat Klein and the house. However it is actually mostly about Shelley Klein and i wasn't very interested in that.
It feels written at too early a stage in her difficulties before they are sufficiently well processed to be written about effectively. There is something a bit self indulgent about wanting an audience for her troubles.
There are some interesting ideas about weaving and time and words, but the writing is not always of a good standard and there are some errors that should have been edited out eg affect for effect.
It feels written at too early a stage in her difficulties before they are sufficiently well processed to be written about effectively. There is something a bit self indulgent about wanting an audience for her troubles.
There are some interesting ideas about weaving and time and words, but the writing is not always of a good standard and there are some errors that should have been edited out eg affect for effect.
March 22, 2020
When I think of the Scottish Borders, images of ruined abbeys, medieval castles and splendid mansions immediately come to mind.
A romanticised and fictional vision of the past was at the heart of Sir Walter Scott's writing and it is not surprising that Abbotsford, the home he became obsessed with, is to be found here.
Like Scott, Bernat Klein was equally obsessed with his created home, but unlike Scott his attitute to the past was perhaps far more complex and his home a better integration of art and life.
This book may on the surface be about a house, however extraordinary, but it is much more and like its subject it has multiple themes to it. One is memory and its often fractured nature.
There was one point in the book when I thought of W. G. Sebald's masterpiece Austerlitz and then a few pages later it was infact referenced by the author.
Shelley Klein here has written a haunting tale of her life, her father's textile designing and her home, which as the book progresses become increasingly interwoven.
Built in 1957 and designed by the architect Peter Womersley, High Sunderland would be a modernist creation, a Bauhaus for the Borders.
Incidentally, just a few weeks before I read the book, I saw an article about someone visiting for the first time the nearby football ground at Galashiels and mentioning the listed Brutalist 1960s groundstand (now sadly closed), which was designed by Wormersley. Certainly worth a visit.
As the book progresses to, I suppose, its inevitable conclusion, the author painfully reaccounts how her life must now change and what this house has meant to her and sees this glass house as a lens to her future.
I read this book in one sitting which I believe is recommendation enough.
A romanticised and fictional vision of the past was at the heart of Sir Walter Scott's writing and it is not surprising that Abbotsford, the home he became obsessed with, is to be found here.
Like Scott, Bernat Klein was equally obsessed with his created home, but unlike Scott his attitute to the past was perhaps far more complex and his home a better integration of art and life.
This book may on the surface be about a house, however extraordinary, but it is much more and like its subject it has multiple themes to it. One is memory and its often fractured nature.
There was one point in the book when I thought of W. G. Sebald's masterpiece Austerlitz and then a few pages later it was infact referenced by the author.
Shelley Klein here has written a haunting tale of her life, her father's textile designing and her home, which as the book progresses become increasingly interwoven.
Built in 1957 and designed by the architect Peter Womersley, High Sunderland would be a modernist creation, a Bauhaus for the Borders.
Incidentally, just a few weeks before I read the book, I saw an article about someone visiting for the first time the nearby football ground at Galashiels and mentioning the listed Brutalist 1960s groundstand (now sadly closed), which was designed by Wormersley. Certainly worth a visit.
As the book progresses to, I suppose, its inevitable conclusion, the author painfully reaccounts how her life must now change and what this house has meant to her and sees this glass house as a lens to her future.
I read this book in one sitting which I believe is recommendation enough.
November 27, 2023
It's probably a very good book, but I hated it. Even from the title you know that Klein is going to be talking about a house. I am interested in architecture, but this was an ode to the house, and I wasn't expecting, nor was I interested in that. The house is glass-walled and in a natural setting, allowing the inhabitants to enjoy nature -- trees, wildlife -- while enjoying the comforts of home. This is nice for the inhabitants, but not so good for the wildlife that surrounds it. When she started in on the poor creatures that mistakenly entered the house, I became uneasy. How soon would she start to talk about the hundreds, really must have been thousands of birds who died as a result of crashing into those glass walls? because with that kind of architecture, that would be inevitable. Or maybe she would simply leave that unpleasant detail out? Either way I would be anticipating it, so I closed the book and went to look for something else to read.
September 6, 2020
A grief novel about losing her father and then needing to let go of her family home, both of which are quite unique and in her own words were intimately connected almost to the point where one represented the other.
I know the area, and so can appreciate the nature writing, the descriptions of the landscape, weather and colours, and the decline in the textile industry. Both Shelley and her father are strong characters, but, as is often the case, an aspect of this is that they are both to some extent ‘stuck’ in their respective ways. I loved Beri’s insistence that every object must look right and function properly, but should that translate to stopping your children have a Christmas tree in the lounge, and having sofas too uncomfortable to sit on for the duration of a film?
The actual sale of the house (and consequent pictures on Zoopla) plus being able to research the textiles and watch interviews add another dimension to this impressive book.
I know the area, and so can appreciate the nature writing, the descriptions of the landscape, weather and colours, and the decline in the textile industry. Both Shelley and her father are strong characters, but, as is often the case, an aspect of this is that they are both to some extent ‘stuck’ in their respective ways. I loved Beri’s insistence that every object must look right and function properly, but should that translate to stopping your children have a Christmas tree in the lounge, and having sofas too uncomfortable to sit on for the duration of a film?
The actual sale of the house (and consequent pictures on Zoopla) plus being able to research the textiles and watch interviews add another dimension to this impressive book.
March 11, 2022
I must admit upfront that I am not a visual person, so a book so focused on architecture, design and fabric was probably not going to be my bag. I admired the structure at first, the idea of each room of the house being explored alongside the family history and the author's own memories and feelings. Unfortunately the broken narrative lost me more than once, I never fully sank into the world of the see-through house and it felt like the book was trying to do too much - family history, architectural study and an examination of grief. I don't think I'll remember much about this book in the months and years to come.
September 11, 2024
Home thoughts from a broad: an easy pick, really, because modernism in architecture - check; history of design - check; a style icon and an iconic style -
check; but Shelley Klein’s book - part memoir of her father, part homage to the house and studio he designed as a proto-live/work space near Galashiels in the Scottish Border country, resonates particularly for me for both immediate and historic reasons.
The grief and loss conveyed for both her parents can be felt by anyone who’s lost a much-loved father or mother. Age and health don’t really matter - the pain is as much about a door finally swinging shut (you can’t pretend not to be a grown up anymore) and who’s next as it is about the final departure of a loved one. And for me a return to the studio which I visited as a schoolboy on a class trip, aged about 12, and which, with the indifference of childhood to all except food, lavatories and trying not to get tricked into sitting on the coach next to Melvin who suffered from persistent flatulence, made only a fleeting impression at the time, but sowed something that later manifested as a love for raw concrete, plate glass, natural timbers and wipe-clean surfaces. (That my school at the time was much the same sort of design intent but built with inferior materials and subject to daily batterings by pupils and teachers alike, may have helped. I do remember Bernat Klein Design’s stairwell decorated with striking 3-D textile sculptures, but us kids were, I’m afraid, more engrossed by the giant statement aquarium in the studio’s boardroom.)
A moving piece, not just memories of a house and its inhabitants, and a social history of fashion and the Border textile industry from early 60s to the 1990s, but a meditation on time, memory and the parent-child bond. Lest that sounds too dry to contemplate, the humour in the exchanges, half-remembered, half-imagined, between Shelley, a grumpy teen who later left High Sunderland to travel the world, and ‘Beri’, her pedantic, sometimes querulous, always demanding dad, whose idea of perfection included no house plants or garden borders “lest they spoil the lines of the house” and who banished her childhood wendy house (despised due to its Hansel & Gretel overtones) to a remote corner of the woods outside where the child Shelley was too scared to go and play in it. I can empathise with both.
Living with art can be both energising and traumatising. The See-Through House captures both sides of the glass with asperity and persuasion.
check; but Shelley Klein’s book - part memoir of her father, part homage to the house and studio he designed as a proto-live/work space near Galashiels in the Scottish Border country, resonates particularly for me for both immediate and historic reasons.
The grief and loss conveyed for both her parents can be felt by anyone who’s lost a much-loved father or mother. Age and health don’t really matter - the pain is as much about a door finally swinging shut (you can’t pretend not to be a grown up anymore) and who’s next as it is about the final departure of a loved one. And for me a return to the studio which I visited as a schoolboy on a class trip, aged about 12, and which, with the indifference of childhood to all except food, lavatories and trying not to get tricked into sitting on the coach next to Melvin who suffered from persistent flatulence, made only a fleeting impression at the time, but sowed something that later manifested as a love for raw concrete, plate glass, natural timbers and wipe-clean surfaces. (That my school at the time was much the same sort of design intent but built with inferior materials and subject to daily batterings by pupils and teachers alike, may have helped. I do remember Bernat Klein Design’s stairwell decorated with striking 3-D textile sculptures, but us kids were, I’m afraid, more engrossed by the giant statement aquarium in the studio’s boardroom.)
A moving piece, not just memories of a house and its inhabitants, and a social history of fashion and the Border textile industry from early 60s to the 1990s, but a meditation on time, memory and the parent-child bond. Lest that sounds too dry to contemplate, the humour in the exchanges, half-remembered, half-imagined, between Shelley, a grumpy teen who later left High Sunderland to travel the world, and ‘Beri’, her pedantic, sometimes querulous, always demanding dad, whose idea of perfection included no house plants or garden borders “lest they spoil the lines of the house” and who banished her childhood wendy house (despised due to its Hansel & Gretel overtones) to a remote corner of the woods outside where the child Shelley was too scared to go and play in it. I can empathise with both.
Living with art can be both energising and traumatising. The See-Through House captures both sides of the glass with asperity and persuasion.
December 25, 2020
I haven't given many reads five stars this year - it's all very subjective but it was nice to close the year on such an amazing book. This is an elegy to Shelley Klein's father and the home he built, High Sutherland, in the Scottish Borders. Shelley moves to care for her father, Beri (Bermat Klein, textile designer) in the last few years of his life and after he died she stays on at High Sutherland and reflects on the impact he and the home had on her psyche, and the links between the built environment and memory. The book is written simply (and I mean that in a good way), with the description never being flowery or too much (very much in line with the modernist style that Beri approved of) and is just a beautiful read. I lost my dad this year so I can very much appreciate how hard it would have been to pull this off without going into sentimentality. Highly recommend.
June 11, 2020
I adored this book. Shelley Klein writes so beautifully about everything. It's a multi-layered memoir this book. It's a meditation on the loss of her parents, her father in particular. It's an exploration of architecture and what happens when architecture becomes home. It's an investigation into the creative processes of art and making cloth that fuelled her father's vision of life. It's a lament not only for her parents but for the legacy of her father's experiences of war. It's simply stunning. I have paced myself, reading to savour each word, each thought and breaking off to investigate further into what she writes about. I have talked about this book with everyone I've come across and recommended it to all and sundry. It's wonderful.
April 30, 2023
Best book I have read this year . There is so much going on in it. A personal journey and memoir, part biography, history of art and architecture and textile design. Saying that the book deals with loss or grief is over simplistic, it is far more complex and interwoven . The book has great moments of light and shade and for me was very well constructed in a non linear way to tell a very engaging story . The author is brutally honest when she needs to be and therefore steered the story away from any saccharine nostalgia and sentimentality into areas of life which we all can relate to .
Couldn’t put it down.
Couldn’t put it down.
May 24, 2020
There is something really poignant and stunning about this book. Klein's description of colour and fabric is so beautiful it has changed the way I think about both. What a delightfully enjoyable book!
February 12, 2021
A wonderful homage by a daughter to her father .. she celebrates his extraordinary life while processing her own grief. Shelley Klein is a gifted writer with the ability to convey her introspection and insight through the most elegiac prose.
August 4, 2022
Took me back to when I lost my dad and had to clear out my childhood home. Our house was nothing so special as this modernist masterpiece, but I could relate to so much of the grieving process described and the desire to hold on to all the memories contained within the four walls of a home.
June 4, 2020
Loved this book. It was informative, original and moving.
June 5, 2020
Wonderful read, blending family history past and present. You feel the authors emotions, the highs and the lows. Heard it first on Radio 4 an was immediate the drawn to it.
October 27, 2020
A timely read for me. Brought me both memories of my own grandfather and of my brutalist Oxford College.
May 23, 2021
Fascinating history of an unusual house, with really moving tales about the family for whom it was built. Not 5 stars, as it didn't flow as evenly as I would have liked.
Read
August 28, 2021Captivating
January 2, 2022
Lovely book/memoir written by a loving daughter who tenderly tells the story of her artist/textile designer father as seen through the unusual house she grew up in. Recommended.
December 6, 2021
It’s a hug in book form. Bursting with love for Beri and his house. Interesting, vivid and moving.
September 25, 2020
When Shelley Klein moved home to High Sunderland to take care of her elderly father, she was welcomed back into its glass rooms as the girl she once was, but the furniture and house plants she’d accumulated in the 30-years passed were not. This wasn’t wholly unexpected, however reignited a familiar tension between her and the man she both refuted and revered.
Part memoir, part heart-felt eulogy, Shelley maps her father’s life and career through the floorplan of the house he built for her and her siblings; from glass hallways, to the living and bedrooms, and finally to the garden where the children say their last goodbyes to an eccentric and fastidious, but ultimately adored father.
A touching and timely account of familial love, The See-Through House arrives with all the greater earnest in our period of lockdown, compelling readers to appreciate the importance of home and family anew.
Part memoir, part heart-felt eulogy, Shelley maps her father’s life and career through the floorplan of the house he built for her and her siblings; from glass hallways, to the living and bedrooms, and finally to the garden where the children say their last goodbyes to an eccentric and fastidious, but ultimately adored father.
A touching and timely account of familial love, The See-Through House arrives with all the greater earnest in our period of lockdown, compelling readers to appreciate the importance of home and family anew.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews