How Architecture Works

A Humanist's Toolkit

Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, Architecture, History
Cover of the book How Architecture Works by Witold Rybczynski, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Witold Rybczynski ISBN: 9781429953320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication: October 8, 2013
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Language: English
Author: Witold Rybczynski
ISBN: 9781429953320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication: October 8, 2013
Imprint: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English

An essential toolkit for understanding architecture as both art form and the setting for our everyday lives

We spend most of our days and nights in buildings, living and working and sometimes playing. Buildings often overawe us with their beauty. Architecture is both setting for our everyday lives and public art form—but it remains mysterious to most of us.
In How Architecture Works, Witold Rybczynski, one of our best, most stylish critics and winner of the Vincent Scully Prize for his architectural writing, answers our most fundamental questions about how good—and not-so-good—buildings are designed and constructed. Introducing the reader to the rich and varied world of modern architecture, he takes us behind the scenes, revealing how architects as different as Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, and Robert A. M. Stern envision and create their designs. He teaches us how to "read" plans, how buildings respond to their settings, and how the smallest detail—of a stair balustrade, for instance—can convey an architect's vision. Ranging widely from a war memorial in London to an opera house in St. Petersburg, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to a famous architect's private retreat in downtown Princeton, How Architecture Works, explains the central elements that make up good building design. It is an enlightening humanist's toolkit for thinking about the built environment and seeing it afresh.
"Architecture, if it is any good, speaks to all of us," Rybczynski writes. This revelatory book is his grand tour of architecture today.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An essential toolkit for understanding architecture as both art form and the setting for our everyday lives

We spend most of our days and nights in buildings, living and working and sometimes playing. Buildings often overawe us with their beauty. Architecture is both setting for our everyday lives and public art form—but it remains mysterious to most of us.
In How Architecture Works, Witold Rybczynski, one of our best, most stylish critics and winner of the Vincent Scully Prize for his architectural writing, answers our most fundamental questions about how good—and not-so-good—buildings are designed and constructed. Introducing the reader to the rich and varied world of modern architecture, he takes us behind the scenes, revealing how architects as different as Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, and Robert A. M. Stern envision and create their designs. He teaches us how to "read" plans, how buildings respond to their settings, and how the smallest detail—of a stair balustrade, for instance—can convey an architect's vision. Ranging widely from a war memorial in London to an opera house in St. Petersburg, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to a famous architect's private retreat in downtown Princeton, How Architecture Works, explains the central elements that make up good building design. It is an enlightening humanist's toolkit for thinking about the built environment and seeing it afresh.
"Architecture, if it is any good, speaks to all of us," Rybczynski writes. This revelatory book is his grand tour of architecture today.

More books from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Cover of the book Wild Horse Annie by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book The Boatman's Daughter by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Gilgamesh by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Twilight of the Superheroes by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book If I Were You by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Terra Nostra by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Tractor Mac Teamwork by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book High Cotton by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book The Illuminations by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Super Stock Rookie by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Because It Is My Blood by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book The Mark and the Void by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Hell's Traces by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book Some of My Lives by Witold Rybczynski
Cover of the book The World and Its Double by Witold Rybczynski
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy