#witold rybczynski

[davidhudson]

Happy 82nd, Witold Rybczynski.

[exhaled-spirals]

Exactly what makes a building memorable is hard to pin down. It’s certainly not merely fulfilling a practical function-all buildings do that. Beauty? Architecture is an art, yet we rarely concentrate our attention on buildings as we do on plays, books, and paintings. Most architecture, a backdrop for our everyday lives, is experienced in bits and pieces-the glimpsed view of a distant spire, the intricacy of a wrought-iron railing, the soaring space of a railroad station waiting room. Sometimes it’s just a detail, a well-shaped door handle, a window framing a perfect little view, a rosette carved into a chapel pew. And we say to ourselves, ‘How nice. Someone actually thought of that.'

Witold Rybczynski, How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit

[wrathofgnon]

“The requirement that modern buildings do away with moldings, decoration, and ornament—the whole apparatus of what for centuries had constituted architecture—was most definitely a mistake. And it was monstrous, for it left architecture mute, without a vocabulary. The ‘language’ of modernism resembled Esperanto, and, as Esperanto would have done had it ever been adopted, an invented language cuts its users off from the past. Modern writers in English use the language of Shakespeare, Austen, and Trollope to express their ideas, which inestimably enriches their work. Modern architects make-do with a cobbled-together shorthand that has limited range of expression except, at best, to demonstrate how a thing was made.” — Witold Rybczynski, 2018

[wrathofgnon]

  “Of all the applied arts, architecture is the least progressive—that is, while engineering and technology evolve, architecture itself, its forms and spaces, is constant. A Renaissance fireplace is not as efficient as a modern gas furnace, but a Renaissance building, judged purely architecturally, can be as good as, or even better than, a modern one. Architecture, especially great architecture, does not become obsolete. That is why Palladio looked at Bramante, and I am looking at Palladio.” — Witold Rybczynski

[wrathofgnon]

“He made precise drawings of capitals, friezes, and entablatures, meticulously dimensioning each torus and fillet. He copied details. He sketched moldings, either drawing them by eye or modeling their outlines with a thin strip of lead that he used as a drawing template. The purpose of this activity was twofold. Drawing, which involves long periods of intense scrutiny, internalizes the subject (in a way photography does not begin to approximate); Palladio was schooling his eye and trying to better understand what he was seeing. He was also compiling a visual lexicon to which he could refer when he was working. Classical buildings of the type that Palladio designed depended on numerous details, especially moldings—around doors and windows, surrounding fireplaces, at dados and cornices. His field sketches provided an invaluable catalog of models.” — Witold Rybczynski, “The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio.”

[tibaert]

Het Pentagon

The Pentagon Building, Washington, DC   The Pentagon – Steve Vogel THE OFFICE Witold Rybczynski   The Pentagon is not generally considered a significant work of architecture, but perhaps it should be. In a period when every new art museum and luxury condo tower is touted as “iconic,” the Pentagon is the real thing: a globally recognized symbol. This concrete behemoth — the largest office…

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[librarienne]

Currently Reading: How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit by Witold Rybczynski

[proverbiumseniorum]

“The most beautiful house in the world is the one that you build for yourself.”—Witold Rybczynski, American arthitect, 1943- (Please note that each of these quotations is meant to be read independently of all the others, especially those immediately preceding and following the current quotation.) “Observatio, Experimenta, et Inventum”™ ™