Background
Rybczynski, Witold Marian was born on March 1, 1943 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Son of Witold Kasimir and Anna Jadwiga (Hofman) Rybczynski. emigrated to Canada, 1953.
(Aristotle wrote that we work in order to have leisure. Bu...)
Aristotle wrote that we work in order to have leisure. But is the leisure that Aristotle spoke of--the freedom to do nothing--the same as the leisure we look forward to each weekend? With fascinating anecdotal detail, Rybczynski unfolds the history of leisure from ancient Rome to the Enlightenment to today, explores the origins of the week and the weekend, and illuminates its profound influences on our lives.
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(Will be dispatched from UK. Used books may not include co...)
Will be dispatched from UK. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.
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(A architectural perspective on urban development explains...)
A architectural perspective on urban development explains how cities have evolved into the individual locales of the present, focusing on places as diverse as New York City, Charleston, Chicago, and New Orleans. 40,000 first printing. BOMC & QPB Alt. Tour.
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(What is style in architecture? "Style is like a feather i...)
What is style in architecture? "Style is like a feather in a woman's hat, nothing more," said Le Corbusier, expressing most modern architects' low regard for the subject. But Witold Rybczynski disagrees, and in The Look of Architecture, he makes a compelling case for the importance of style to the mother of the arts. This is a book brimming with sharp observations--that form does not follow function; that the best architecture is not timeless but precisely of its time; that details do not merely complement the architecture--details are the architecture. But the heart of the book illuminates the connection between architecture, interior decoration, and fashion. Style is the language of architecture, Rybczynski writes, and fashion represents the wide and swirling cultural currents that shape and direct that language. The two--style and fashion--are intimately linked; indeed, architecture cannot escape fashion. To set these ideas in sharp relief, he shows us how style and fashion have been expressed in the work of major architects including Frank Gehry, Mies van der Rohe, Charles McKim, Allan Greenberg, Robert Venturi, Enrique Norten, and many others. He helps us see their works anew and ultimately to look afresh at our surroundings. Style is one of the enduring--and endearing--aspects of architecture, Rybczynski concludes. Furthermore, an architecture that recognizes the importance of style would not be as introspective and self-referential as are so many contemporary buildings. It would be part of the world: Not architecture for architects, but for the rest of us.
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("A winning book, a pleasure to read…a revelation about wh...)
"A winning book, a pleasure to read…a revelation about what architects actually do and how they go about doing it." –Los Angeles Times Witold Rybezynski takes us on an extraordinary odyssey as he tells the story of designing and building of his own house. Rybezynski’s project began as a workshed; through a series of "happy accidents," however, the structure gradually evolved into a full-fledge house. In tracing this evolution, he touches on matters both theoretical and practical, writing on such diverse topics as the distinguished structural descendants of the humble barn, the ritualistic origins of the elements of classical architecture, and the connections between dress and habitation, and between architecture and gastronomy. Rybezynski discusses feng shui, the Chinese art of placing a home in the landscape, and also considers the theories and work of such architects as Palladio, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright. An eloquent examination of the links between being and building, The Most Beautiful House in the World offers insights into the joys of "installing ourselves in a place, of establishing a spot where it be safe to dream."
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(Walk through five centuries of homes both great and small...)
Walk through five centuries of homes both great and small—from the smoke-filled manor halls of the Middle Ages to today's Ralph Lauren-designed environments—on a house tour like no other, one that delightfully explicates the very idea of "home." You'll see how social and cultural changes influenced styles of decoration and furnishing, learn the connection between wall-hung religious tapestries and wall-to-wall carpeting, discover how some of our most welcome luxuries were born of architectural necessity, and much more. Most of all, Home opens a rare window into our private lives—and how we really want to live.
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(THE PROBLEM OF CONTROLLING TECHNOLOGY HAS PREOCCUPIED US ...)
THE PROBLEM OF CONTROLLING TECHNOLOGY HAS PREOCCUPIED US SINCE THE TIME OF THE FIRST FOREST FIRE CAUSED BY MAN, BUT TODAY, IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY, THE INTRODUCTION AND EVOLUTION OF MACHINES ARE OF INCREASING CONCERN. UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECTS HAVE ALWAYS ACCOMPANIED TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, AND AS ADVANCES THAT MAY HAVE FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES OCCUR IN PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING, WE FEEL AGAIN THE NEED TO DEFINE OUR UNEASY RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR INVENTIONS. WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI PROVOCATIVE BOOK HELPS US TO DO SO BY EXAMINING THE ATTEMPTS OF OUR PREDECESSORS TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE SHOCK OF THE MACHINE.
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( The Miami estate of Vizcaya, like its palatial contempo...)
The Miami estate of Vizcaya, like its palatial contemporaries Biltmore and San Simeon, represents an achievement of the Gilded Age, when country houses and their gardens were a conspicuous measure of personal wealth and power. In Vizcaya: An American Villa and Its Makers, a celebrated architecture critic and writer and an award-winning landscape architect explore the little-known story of Vizcaya, an extraordinary national treasure. Witold Rybczynski and Laurie Olin use a rich collection of illustrations, historic photographs, and narrative to document the creation of this stunning house and landscape. Vizcaya was completed in 1916 as the winter retreat of Chicago industrialist James Deering. The cosmopolitan bachelor, who chose Miami for its warm climate, enlisted the guidance of artist Paul Chalfin, with whom he traveled throughout Italy to survey houses and gardens. With the assistance of architect F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr., and garden designer Diego Suarez, the 180-acre site on Biscayne Bay was transformed into a grand estate, complete with lagoons, canals, citrus groves, a farm village, a yacht harbor, and a 40-room Baroque mansion. The lure of this architectural and landscape masterpiece, named for a Spanish Basque province, is undeniable. John Singer Sargent planned a short visit in 1917 but stayed for several months, producing an inspired series of watercolors, many of which are reproduced here for the first time. The book is further enriched by archival material and by the color images of noted photographer Steven Brooke, paying homage to Vizcaya as a lens through which readers learn about architecture, landscape and garden design, interior decoration, and art.
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(Exploring the time we think of as our own, the author dis...)
Exploring the time we think of as our own, the author discusses the evolution of leisure time in Western civilization, from Aristotle, through the Middle Ages, to the present. By the author of Home. Reprint.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140126635/?tag=2022091-20
(When Witold Rybczynski first heard about New Daleville, i...)
When Witold Rybczynski first heard about New Daleville, it was only a developer's idea, attached to ninety acres of cornfield an hour and a half west of Philadelphia. Over the course of five years, Rybczynski met and talked to everyone involved in the building of this residential subdivision -- from the developers to the township leaders, whose approval they needed, to the home builders and engineers and, ultimately, the first families who moved in. Always eloquent and illuminating, the award-winning author of Home and A Clearing in the Distance looks at this "neotraditional" project, with its houses built close together to encourage a sense of intimacy and community, and explains the trends in American domestic architecture -- from where we place our kitchens and fences to why our bathrooms get larger every year. Last Harvest was voted one of the ten best books of 2008 by the editors of Planetizen, and as Publishers Weekly said, "Rybczynski provides historical and cultural perspectives in a style reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell, debunking the myth of urban sprawl and explaining American homeowners' preference for single-family dwellings."
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(From a da Vinci sketch to a Phillips, this is the story o...)
From a da Vinci sketch to a Phillips, this is the story of the partnership between the screw and the screwdriver, the people who perfected it, and the innovations that made it possible.
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(From the opening sentences of his first book on architect...)
From the opening sentences of his first book on architecture, Home, Witold Rybczynski seduced readers into a new appreciation of the spaces they live in. He also introduced us to "an unerringly lucid writer who knows how to translate architectural ideas into layman's terms" (The Dallas Morning News). Rybczynski's vast knowledge, his sense of wonder, and his elegantly uncluttered prose shine on every page of his latest meditation on the art of building. Looking Around is about architecture as an art of compromise—between beauty and function, aspiration and engineering, builders and clients. It is the story of the Seagram Building in New York and the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts in Columbus, Ohio—a museum that opened without a single painting on view, so that critics could better appreciate its design. But what of the visitors who want a building that displays art well? What of those who work in the building? Looking Around explores the notion of the architect as superstar and assesses giants from Palladio to Michael Graves, styles from classicism to high tech. It demonstrates how architecture actually works—or doesn't—in corporate headquarters, airports, private homes, and the special buildings designed to represent our civilization. For all its erudition, Looking Around is also bracingly straightforward. Rybczynski looks closely and critically at structures that may once have dazzled us with their ostentation and expense, and sees them as triumphs or failures—of aesthetic ideals and of lasting function. This is a fascinating and illuminating book about an art form integral to our lives.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140168893/?tag=2022091-20
(AWARD-WINNING AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED WRITER WITOLD RYBC...)
AWARD-WINNING AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED WRITER WITOLD RYBCZYNSKI DELIVERS A REVELATORY COLLECTION OF LINKED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS -- PART MEMOIR, PART FAMILY HISTORY -- ABOUT THE UPHEAVALS OF EUROPEAN LIVES DURING WORLD WAR II, HIS OWN INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT, AND THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES OF ART, MUSIC, AND ARCHITECTURE. Witold Rybczynski's parents and grandparents were a thriving, cultured family in prewar Warsaw, then a sophisticated European city. With the onset of war, their world fell apart. His mother and father made separate escapes, reuniting against many odds on a ship bound for Scotland from Marseilles. That people can lose everything, overcome stunning odds to survive, remake themselves in a foreign country, learn a new language and culture, and then do it again is extraordinary. My Two Polish Grandfathers is a testament to the boundaryless world of art, architecture, and music -- which can be transported from one country to another -- and clear affirmation of Rybczynski's own path toward becoming an architect and one of today's most original thinkers. Beautifully written, thoughtful, and extraordinarily subtle, this riveting work offers a rare glimpse into the development of Rybczynski's educated outsider's eye and is a tribute to a European generation that has helped to define postwar American culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743235983/?tag=2022091-20
("Palladio is the Bible," Thomas Jefferson once said. "You...)
"Palladio is the Bible," Thomas Jefferson once said. "You should get it and stick to it." With his simple, gracious, perfectly proportioned villas, Andrea Palladio elevated the architecture of the private house into an art form during the late sixteenth century -- and his influence is still evident in the ample porches, columned porticoes, grand ceilings, and front-door pediments of America today. In The Perfect House, bestselling author Witold Rybczynski, whose previous books (Home, A Clearing in the Distance, Now I Sit Me Down) have transformed our understanding of domestic architecture, reveals how a handful of Palladio's houses in an obscure corner of the Venetian Republic should have made their presence felt hundreds of years later and halfway across the globe. More than just a study of one of history's seminal architectural figures, The Perfect House reflects Rybczynski's enormous admiration for his subject and provides a new way of looking at the special landscapes we call "home" in the modern world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743205871/?tag=2022091-20
Rybczynski, Witold Marian was born on March 1, 1943 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Son of Witold Kasimir and Anna Jadwiga (Hofman) Rybczynski. emigrated to Canada, 1953.
Diploma, Loyola College, Montreal, 1960. Bachelor of Architecture, McGill University, 1966. Master in Architecture, McGill University, 1972.
Doctor of Science (honorary), McGill University, 2002. Doctor of Laws (honorary), University Western Ontario, 2006.
Rybczynski has written more than 300 articles and papers on the subjects of housing, architecture, and technology, many of which are aimed at a non-technical readership. His work has been published in a wide variety of magazines, including The Wilson Quarterly, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. From 2004 to 2010, he was architecture critic for Slate.
He taught at McGill University (1974–1993) and the University of Pennsylvania (1993–2012), and served on the United States. Commission of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2012.
He now lives in Philadelphia and is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
(AWARD-WINNING AND CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED WRITER WITOLD RYBC...)
(In this new work, prizewinning author, professor, and Sla...)
(Walk through five centuries of homes both great and small...)
( The Miami estate of Vizcaya, like its palatial contempo...)
( A deep exploration of modern life that examines our cit...)
(THE PROBLEM OF CONTROLLING TECHNOLOGY HAS PREOCCUPIED US ...)
(A architectural perspective on urban development explains...)
(Pub Date: 2014-02-25 Pages: 240 Language: Traditional Chi...)
(From a da Vinci sketch to a Phillips, this is the story o...)
(Exploring the time we think of as our own, the author dis...)
(What is style in architecture? "Style is like a feather i...)
(When Witold Rybczynski first heard about New Daleville, i...)
(From the opening sentences of his first book on architect...)
( Told in ten parts by prominent Montreal writers and dis...)
("A winning book, a pleasure to read…a revelation about wh...)
(Read by Wanda McCaddon Explore the history and the natu...)
(Home : A Short History of An Idea by Witold Rybczynski. P...)
(Aristotle wrote that we work in order to have leisure. Bu...)
("Palladio is the Bible," Thomas Jefferson once said. "You...)
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Member advisory council Institute Classical Architect, since 2003. Member advisory board Chicago Humanities Festival, since 2003. Advisor Library. American Landscape History, since 2002, member United States Commission Finance Arts, since 2004.
Fellow: American Institute of Architects (honorary). Member: American Society Landscape Architects (honorary).
Married Shirley Hallam, November 15, 1974.