Home : a short history of an idea / Witold Rybczynski.

By:

Rybczynski, Witold

Material type: Text

0140102310
9780140102314

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

728 RYB

Summary: An architect discusses the idea of comfort and the Western cultural attitudes that have shaped it since the end of the Middle Ages, reviewing such cultural variables as intimacy and privacy, domesticity, ease, and ideas about light, air, and efficiency as they have changed over time, and making a plea for the primacy of cultural ideals as a basis for creating psychologically comfortable homes.

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Standard Loan	LSAD Library Main Collection	728 RYB (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		39002100662619

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Walk through five centuries of homes both great and small--from the smoke-filled manor halls of the Middle Ages to today's Ralph Lauren-designed environments--on a house tour like no other, one that delightfully explicates the very idea of "home."

You'll see how social and cultural changes influenced styles of decoration and furnishing, learn the connection between wall-hung religious tapestries and wall-to-wall carpeting, discover how some of our most welcome luxuries were born of architectural necessity, and much more. Most of all, Home opens a rare window into our private lives--and how we really want to live.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-244) and index.

An architect discusses the idea of comfort and the Western cultural attitudes that have shaped it since the end of the Middle Ages, reviewing such cultural variables as intimacy and privacy, domesticity, ease, and ideas about light, air, and efficiency as they have changed over time, and making a plea for the primacy of cultural ideals as a basis for creating psychologically comfortable homes.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Witold Rybczynski of Polish parentage, was born in Edinburgh in 1943, raised in Surrey, and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He received Bachelor of Architecture (1960) and Master of Architecture (1972) degrees from McGill University in Montreal. He has written for the Atlantic , New Yorker , New York Review of Books , and the New York Times , and has been architecture critic for Saturday Night , Wigwag , and Slate . His book include Taming the Tiger , Paper Heroes , The Most Beautiful House in the World , Waiting for the Weekend , and Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture , City Life and Charleston Fancy . He lives with his wife, Shirley Hallam, in Philadelphia and is Emeritus Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.