Witold Rybczynski (born 1 March 1943) is a Canadian American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, professor and writer. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

Early life

Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, England, before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola College in Montreal. He received Bachelor of Architecture (1966) and Master of Architecture (1972) degrees from McGill University in Montreal.

Career

Rybczynski has written around 300 articles and papers on the subjects of

housing Housing refers to a property containing one or more Shelter (building), shelter as a living space. Housing spaces are inhabited either by individuals or a collective group of people. Housing is also referred to as a human need and right to ...

, architecture, and technology, many of which are aimed at a non-technical readership. His work has been published in a wide variety of magazines, including '' The Wilson Quarterly'', '' The Atlantic Monthly'', and ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''. From 2004 to 2010, he was architecture critic for '' Slate''. He taught at McGill University (1974–1993) and the

(1993–2012), and served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2012. He now lives in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and is Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the

. He was married to Shirley Hallam, who died in 2021.

Awards and honors

Rybczynski's book '' Home: A Short History of an Idea'' was nominated for the 1986 Governor General's Award for non-fiction, and '' A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century'' won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and was short-listed for the Charles Taylor Prize in 2000. In 2007 Rybczynski was the recipient of the Seaside Prize and the Vincent Scully Prize, awarded by the National Building Museum. Rybczynski is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council. In 2014 he received a National Design Award for Design Mind from the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Rybczynski is an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. He has received the AIA Collaborative Honors, and the Pennsylvania AIA President's Award. He holds honorary doctorates from McGill University and the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...

Works

*''Paper Heroes: Appropriate Technology: Panacea or Pipe Dream?'' (1980) *''Taming the Tiger: The Struggle to Control Technology'' (1983) *'' Home: A Short History of an Idea'' (1986) *'' The Most Beautiful House in the World'' (1989) *'' Waiting for the Weekend'' (1991) *''McGill: A Celebration'' (1991) *''Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture'' (1992) *''A Place for Art/Un lieu pour l'art: The Architecture of the National Gallery of Canada'' (1993) *''City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World'' (1995) *'' A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century'' (1999) *'' One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw'' (2000) *''The Look of Architecture'' (2001) *''The Perfect House: A Journey with Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio'' (2002) *''Vizcaya: An American Villa and Its Makers'' (2006), co-written with Laurie Olin *''Last Harvest: How A Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America'' (2007) *''My Two Polish Grandfathers: And Other Essays on the Imaginative Life'' (2009) *''Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities'' (2010) *''The Biography of a Building: How Robert Sainsbury and Norman Foster Built a Great Museum'' (2011) * ''How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit ''(2013) * ''Mysteries of the Mall: And Other Essays'' (2015) * ''Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History'' (2016) * ''Charleston Fancy: Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City'' (2019) * ''The Story of Architecture'' (2022) * ''The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car'' (2024)

References

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