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To get started in architecture and design
A subjective essay on the subjective task of home-building
BLURRY WRITING
Holy Digression!
See Under: Function and Form

The Most Beautiful House in the World
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Home: A Short History of an Idea
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ASIN: 0140105662

Customer Reviews:

To get started in architecture and design.......2006-06-16

this refers to the 1989 Penguin Edition-

Asa mechanical engineer in my late thirties I started to know what architecture was all about and its relation to design. It turns out that its not easy to have a comprehensive introduction to the theme. Fortunately, Through Amazon and its reviews and suggested I bought this wonderful book and I was captivated, not only by the perspective it gives on the architecs work, but also on the insight about design it provides.

A subjective essay on the subjective task of home-building.......2006-05-12

This book by the author of "Home: A Short History of an Idea" (1986) is a more subjective and less disciplined examination of that same topic. Professor Rybczynski uses his experience as an immigrant trying to "fit in" as a lens for looking at what in means to build ones own home. The skeleton of this story is the author's own decision to build a shed to which he can retreat on weekends (for more on weekends, read the author's "Waiting for the Weekend," 1991) and build a boat he can sail away in. At some point the shed becomes more of a barn and then, when he finally abandons his plan to build a boat, it becomes a permanent home for himself and his wife. For me, the book is less about architecture, the act or craft of building, and more about morphing and the undpredictable ways life unfolds. Taken in that vein, Rybczynski's story can be appreciated as a spiritual journey with many sidetrips and gentle awakenings. He is self-critical, but not self-deprecating. And he infuses his tale with enough humor to keep the reader interested without taxing credibility. I especially enjoyed his description of his wife, Shirley, who does some morphing of her own. At the beginning (when the couple was building a mere boathouse), she is little more than an extra pair of hands; when the couple decides to make the structure they have been building into their home, Shirley suddenly becomes a full-fledged "client," full of opinions and demands.

Although, Rybczynski describes several impressive architect conceived and built houses (such as Wright's Fallingwater and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth house), it is the houses built by their owners that he most celebrates--Mark Twain's home in Hartford, Connecticutt, Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford, Robert Lewis Stevenson's Vailima in Samoa, artists Carl and Karin Larsson's much documented Lilla Hyttnas in Sundborn, Sweden, and Carl Jung's home in Bollingen, Switzerland. "It is no coincidence," writes Rybczynski, "that Stevenson, Scott, Clemens, Larsson, Castrejon, and I were less than forty years old when we built our homes.... The process of building, for all of us, was a process of installing ourselves in a place, of establishing a spot where it would be safe to dream. We had to be old enough to recognize the particularity--and limits--of our dreams, but not too old to believe in them....My house had begun with the dream of a boat. The dream had run aground--I was now rooted in place." (pp. 190, 193)

BLURRY WRITING.......2005-08-22

I have to agree with another reviewer this book has little to do with home building and is much adieu about nothing. In the end I was a little digusted at what got built....but then again what is beautiful?

I am a fan of the author and this is my 3rd read by him. I do have to warn potential readers that sometimes this book rambles on about topics most readers would have VERY little interest in. On the flip side the book does contain passages that are highly entertaining. Its about 50/50

This is a book that comes in and out of focus, a style of writing I believe the author enjoys. I guess in order to get books out in the marketplace as often as Witold does he must resort to digressing on just about any topic that pops into his mind.

With that said, he is an intellect...he's well traveled and leads what I believe to be a pretty interesting life.

This is an average book, I was expecting a bit more about home building and a bit less esoteric rhetoric. But then again, nothing churns out books better than rambling away.

Holy Digression!.......2004-01-03

This book did not come close to meeting my expectations. Of the 200 pages in this book, scarcely 30 actually pertain to the author's house building experience. It appears "the Most Beautiful House" subject was merely a excuse to ramble from one topic to another. One minute he is talking about animal sacrifices & liver divining, the next he is discussing the verb "to habit". I was sorely disappointed and struggle to find any redeeming quality in this work. Readers be warned that this book is a motley crew of diatribes on topics having little to do with The Most Beautiful House in the World.

See Under: Function and Form.......2001-07-14

This book, an extension in action of the literal expressed in the earlier historic study "Home," takes notion to application in the form of constructing a boat house. Interwoven into the text is an historic overview -albeit briefly- of seventeenth to twentieth century architecture (mies, le corbisier, wright), the elements, motifs, and functional aspects associated with the broader field. Along the way one has the sense the author is being contemplative (although not digressive) in the approach toward considering all phasesof development; a sometimes apt metaphor for the arrival at both the functional and practical. The book itself is well arranged, the letterhead holding sturdy upon the page. It is compact, holds well in the hand and is highly accessible: one could easily read in one sitting. Of interest for anyone engaged in projects in addition to their immediate structure.

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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN THE WORLD
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H3SPKM

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Most Beautiful House in the World
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: VIKING PENGUIN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000QBSCCG

Average customer rating:

The Most Beautiful House in the World
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: Viking Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K6MD3Q

Average customer rating:

Most Beautiful House in the World
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ1E2U

Average customer rating:

The Most Beautiful House in the World
Witold Rybczynski
Manufacturer: New York Viking 1989.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OYK34U

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