|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
With his refusal to hide behind the jargon and hype endemic to the profession, and his ability to puncture its pretensions without mean-spiritedness, Rybczynski (Home: A Short History of an Idea) has become a leading writer on architecture. This concise survey of style in architecture is derived from three lectures the author gave in the New York Public Library, and the intimate, conversational tone he adopts manages to convey a lot of information in a very agreeable way. Indeed, Rybczynski's emphasis on style is itself provocative in a profession that has traditionally given such considerations short shrift. ("Style is like a feather in a woman's cap, nothing more," he finds Le Corbusier observing.) Add to this Rybczynski's referencing of interior design and fashion, and one has a book as iconoclastic as it is readable. Another great strength of the book is its delightfully discursive set pieces, including one on the buildings around Bryant Park this will have visitors to New York clutching this trim and portable book as they peer upwards at the rich mosaic of buildings so beautifully contextualized within. The range of the book is impressively wide, with many less familiar buildings (the Canadian Parliament buildings, the solidly elegant cottages of Alan Greenberg) given due consideration, and recent superstars such as Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim crisply observed. The author's deeply informed enthusiasm is infectious, and his removal of architectural writing from an airily theoretical discourse to the realm of practical experience is empowering for the lay reader. We all have to live in buildings, after all. (July)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In his introduction, New Yorker and Time magazine contributor Rybczynski (urbanism, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Home) acknowledges that this book began with a series of three extemporaneous talks at the New York Public Library in fall 2001. Yet he still offers keenly observed and cogent commentary on the significance of style and fashion in architecture. Using anecdote, historical data, and descriptive prose to comment on Western architecture during the modern era, Rybczynski shows how the often dismissed discipline of apparel design finds its correlative in architectural fashion. An examination of three stair railings from Le Corbusier's Shodhan House, I.M. Pei's East Building at the National Gallery of Art, and Bernard Tschumi's new Lerner Center at Columbia University interweaves a deep appreciation for how the materials of architecture are assembled with references to their diverse theoretical foundations. Illustrations are regrettably small and low in resolution. Even so, this book serves more ably as an architectural primer than James O'Gorman's ABC of Architecture (LJ 12/97) and should become a companion, if not a worthy successor, to Steen Eiler Rasmussen's Experiencing Architecture (1964). For all architecture collections. Paul Glassman, New York Sch. of Interior Design Lib.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Architecture is hard to define. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Architecture is hard to define. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous Book,
By "seaclaremont" (Claremont, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Look of Architecture (Paperback)
Any book by Rybczynski is a delight to read and contains a wealth of information and fresh ideas. "The Look of Architecture" is no exception, and while it is not as groundbreaking as "Home," it is a carefully written analysis of Architecture that is chock-full of examples to illustrate what he's getting at (a few more pictures would be nice, though).
4.0 out of 5 stars
Suprising,
By "homegrownmelissa" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Look of Architecture (Hardcover)
I was amazed by how involved I got in this book. For a book about buildings, I was grossly interested. Rybczynski knows his stuff when it comes to books.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why archtitects hate the "s" word,
By Charles S. Houser - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Look of Architecture (Paperback)
This book consists of three lectures given by Professor Rybczynski at the New York Public Library (lectures he admits to revising for publication based on the need to respond to challenging questions from his audience). While not as innovative in topic and scope of inquiry as his books "Home" and "Waiting for the Weekend," there is much here that Rybczynski's loyal readers will recognize and appreciate--the author's love of his subject, his deep and broad knowledge of the history of architecture, his high regard for the minutia others tend to dismiss, and his confidence in his own opinion. The three essays--"Dressing Up," "In and Out of Fashion," and "Style"--are an investigation, among other things, of archtects' reluctance to speak of their work in terms of style. "Architects don't like to talk about style," Rybczynski says in his introduction. "Ask an architect what style he works in and you are likely to be met with a pained expression, or with silence." (p. xi). The lectures explore the differences between arcitecture and other art forms (including interior design, cooking, and the rag trade). Of the distinction between style and fashion, he says, "If style is the language of architecture, fashion represents the wide--and swirling--cultural currents that shape and direct that language." (p. 51) In the end, Rybczynski observes, "A suspicion of style is a heritage of the Modern Movement, which preached against the arbitrary dictates of style and fashion, while maintaining an unspoken but rigid stylistic consistency." (p. 109) He also attributes the reluctance to speak in terms of style to archtects' fears (but I'll let you ferret out the provocative supporting quotations for yourself). The lectures are well-seasoned with aphorisms, and I found myself often lowering the book to my lap and pondering individual statements for minutes at a time as if in conversation with the author. I will leave you with just one more of these statements, "The role of details is not to complement architecture; details ARE archticture." (p. 94) All in all, I found "The Look of Architecture" to be a very enjoyable read.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous Book,
By "seaclaremont" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Look of Architecture (Paperback)
Any book by Rybczynski is a delight to read and contains a wealth of information and fresh ideas. "The Look of Architecture" is no exception, and while it is not as groundbreaking as "Home," it is a carefully written analysis of Architecture that is chock-full of examples to illustrate what he's getting at (a few more pictures would be nice, though).
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Fickle Nature of Architecture,
By Terri J. Rice "ricepaper" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Look of Architecture (Paperback)
Sir Henry Wotton said, "The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions: commoditie, firmness and delight."Commodity- to shelter human activity firmness- to durably challenge gravity and the elements delight- to be an object of beauty Building should last and feel as though they will. A banal church is a greater failure than a banal factory. The end must direct the operation. Rybczynski packs this book with a lot of information in a delightful way, making it an easy and enjoyable book. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
