In this illuminating book, Witold Rybczynski walks us through five centuries of homes both great and small, from the smoke-filled manor halls of the Middle Ages to the Ralph Lauren–designed environments of today. 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 so...

In Last Harvest, the award-winning author of Home and A Clearing in the Distance tells the compelling story of New Daleville, a brand-new residential subdivision in rural Pennsylvania. 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 everyone involved in the transformation of this land...

The prize-winning scholar's "expert, holistic, down-to-earth guide" to the beauty and function of architecture ( Booklist , starred review).We spend most of our days and nights in buildings. They are the setting of our everyday lives as well as a public art form. Yet architecture remains a mystery to most of us. In How Architecture Works, Witold Rybczynski, a renowned critic and winner of the Vincent Scully Prize f...

In this new work, prizewinning author, professor, and Slate architecture critic Witold Rybczynski returns to the territory he knows best: writing about the way people live, just as he did in the acclaimed bestsellers Home and A Clearing in the Distance. In Makeshift Metropolis, Rybczynski has drawn upon a lifetime of observing cities to craft a concise and insightful book that is at once an intellectual history and a masterful critique.

**“[A] compact epic.… Brisk, lucid and enjoyable.” —Richard Snow, Wall Street JournalThe renowned design writer on the extraordinary history of car design.**In this lively and entertaining work, Witold Rybczynski—hailed as “one of the best writers on design working today” by Publishers Weekly—tells the story of the most distinctive cars in history and the artists, engineers, dreamers, and gearheads who created them. Delving into more than 170 years of inge...

An inviting exploration of architecture across cultures and centuries by one of the field’s eminent authorsIn this sweeping history, from the Stone Age to the present day, Witold Rybczynski shows how architectural ideals have been affected by technological, economic, and social changes—and by changes in taste. The host of examples ranges from places of worship such as Hagia Sophia and Brunelleschi’s Duomo to living spaces such as the Katsura Imperial Villa and the ...

A captivating chronicle of building in modern-day Charleston, making a case for architecture based on historical precedent, local context, and the ability to delightCharleston, South Carolina, which boasts America’s first historic district, is known for its palmetto-lined streets and picturesque houses. The Holy City, named for its profusion of churches, exudes an irresistible charm. Award-winning author and cultural critic Witold Rybczynski unfolds a series of sto...

A deep exploration of modern life that examines our cities, public places, and homes.Following How Architecture Works, Witold Rybczynski casts a seasoned critical eye over the modern scene with Mysteries of the Mall. His subject is nothing less than the broad setting of our metropolitan world.In thirty-five discerning essays, Rybczynski ranges over subjects as varied as shopping malls, Central Park, the Paris opera house, and America's shrin...

Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere?In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He re...

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 wo...

"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 bo...

“We work,” Aristotle wrote, “in order to have leisure.” Today, this is still true. But is the leisure that Aristotle spoke of—the freedom to do nothing—the same as the leisure we look forward to each weekend?There have always been breaks from the routine of work—taboo days, market days, public festivals, holy days—we couldn’t survive without them. In Waiting for the Weekend, Witold Rybczynski unfolds the history and evolution of leisure time in Western civilization, from A...