Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture - Softcover

Rybczynski, Witold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140168893 ISBN 13: 9780140168891

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 1993

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Witold Rybczynski of Polish parentage, was born in Edinburgh in 1943, raised in Surrey, and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He received Bachelor of Architecture (1960) and Master of Architecture (1972) degrees from McGill University in Montreal. He is the author of more than fifty articles and papers on the subject of housing, architecture, and technology, including the books Taming the Tiger, Paper Heroes, The Most Beautiful House in the World, Waiting for the Weekend, and Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture (all available in Penguin), and most recently, City Life. He lives with his wife, Shirley Hallam, in Philadelphia and is the Martin and Margy Myerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.

From Library Journal:

Rybczynski is an architectural critic whose interests and resulting essays roam far from the specific building(s) he is enjoying. These critiques employ a gentle, even relaxed prose that allows readers to share Rybczynski's aesthetic connections and his expansions on the role of building styles in our constructed world. The book contains 35 brief pieces divided into three sections: "Homes and Houses," "Special Places," and "The Art of Building." Rybczynski takes us from the demise of the parlour (is the living room next?), to the Nixon Library, to the future of Chicago architecture. By wandering confidently through a broad anthropological as well as architectural landscape, the author is able to unite a wide range of design details into insightful analysis. This work is recommended for both academic and public libraries.
- David Bryant, Belleville P.L., N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0140168893
• ISBN 13: 9780140168891
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320