The Look of Architecture (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanitites) - Hardcover

Rybczynski, Witold

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195134435 ISBN 13: 9780195134438

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 2001

Synopsis

Witold Rybczynski begins his book by stating that most architects deny that they fit into any stylistic form. We cannont, however, separate Frank Lloyd Wright from his hat and cape, or Le Corbusier from his heavy round glasses. Similarly, buildings present a public face that do not always betray their function. In this essay, he takes a short tour of modern architecture and talks about what style in architecture means. Rybczynski shows how style in clothing and architecture are related, and discusses why style became a taboo subject in the 20th-century. With descriptions of particular buildings, he examines the work of brilliant architects including Mies van der Rohe, Robert Venturi, and Frank Gehry, illustrating his argument that contrary to modernist dogma, form does not follow function. Rybczynski leaves the reader with a fresh way of looking at architecture.

About this title

Review

"Rybczyniski takes a seemingly whimsical topic--the role of fashion in architecture--and lightly teases from it some discomfiting truths."--Kirkus (starred review) "A thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how buildings reflect the desires of their age."--Boston Globe "In his absorbing and accessible book-length essay on the relationship between fashion and building design...Rybczynski argues eloquently that, as in fashion, a building's form is molded by the tastes of its age."--One: Design Matters "Rybczyniski takes a seemingly whimsical topic--the role of fashion in architecture--and lightly teases from it some discomfiting truths."--Kirkus (starred review) "A thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how buildings reflect the desires of their age."--Boston Globe "In his absorbing and accessible book-length essay on the relationship between fashion and building design...Rybczynski argues eloquently that, as in fashion, a building's form is molded by the tastes of its age."--One: Design Matters "Rybczyniski takes a seemingly whimsical topic--the role of fashion in architecture--and lightly teases from it some discomfiting truths."--Kirkus (starred review) "A thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how buildings reflect the desires of their age."--Boston Globe "In his absorbing and accessible book-length essay on the relationship between fashion and building design...Rybczynski argues eloquently that, as in fashion, a building's form is molded by the tastes of its age."--One: Design Matters "Rybczyniski takes a seemingly whimsical topic--the role of fashion in architecture--and lightly teases from it some discomfiting truths."--Kirkus (starred review) "A thoughtful and thought-provoking look at how buildings reflect the desires of their age."--Boston Globe "In his absorbing and accessible book-length essay on the relationship between fashion and building design...Rybczynski argues eloquently that, as in fashion, a building's form is molded by the tastes of its age."--One: Design Matters

About the Author

Witold Rybczynski is one of America's best known writers on architecture, the author of the bestselling One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw, Home, Waiting for the Weekend, The Most Beautiful House in the World, and A Clearing in the Distance. He has also written on architecture for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, and The New York Review of Books. The Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, he lives in Philadelphia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0195134435
• ISBN 13: 9780195134438
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144