is a 21st century renaissance man whose wide-ranging interests find expression through a focus on landscape and design. He writes frequently about the interplay of society and culture in the shaping of the human-constructed environment. His books include Home: A Short History of an Idea, City Life and The Last Harvest. A regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, he is a Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.
Part memoir, part family history, his new book My Two Polish Grandfathers delivers a collection of linked autobiographical essays that testifies to the ability of people to survive in the face of overwhelming odds. A thriving, cultured family in prewar Warsaw, Rybczynski's parents and grandparents lost everything when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. How they remade themselves in a foreign country and built a new life is a tribute to a European generation that has helped to define our postwar culture.
| Categories: Authors |
|
See:
| |
Witold Rybczynski's parents and grandparents were a thriving, cultured family in prewar Warsaw, then a sophisticated European city. With the onset of war, their world fell apart. His moth...
| |
This immensely popular, witty, and highly provocative book is changing people's attitudes about convenience, decor, and technology in home design and furnishing.
| |
Residential real estate development seems like an unlikely topic for a gripping read, and certainly Rybczynski can't be said to have produced a page-turner. But the author of The Perfect ...
| |
A story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from Ancient Greece to Victorian Glasgow, from weapons design in the Italian Renaissance to care design in the age of North A...
| |
The jogger in Montreal’s Mount Royal Park doesn’t think twice about the passing scenery of mature trees and winding paths. Most of us take these green landmarks for granted, but their exi...
| |
Witold Rybczynski makes a compelling case for the importance of style to the mother of the arts; in this book he argues book that form does NOT follow function; that the best architectur...
| |
"Palladio is the Bible," Thomas Jefferson once said. "You should get it and stick to it." With his simple, gracious, perfectly proportioned villas, Andrea Palladio elevated the architectu...
Loading...
