Customer Reviews

The Most Beautiful House in the World

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A wall of glass bottles was the final feature completing the house Witold Rybczynski built for himself. On the oval bottom of a brown bottle of Armagnac, he inscribed the date and the names of his coworkers and signed off like an ancient craftsman: ''RYBCZYNSKI FECIT.'' This gem of a book rewards the reader with a wealth of meaning in those words, ''Rybczynski made it,'' revealing the whole experience - esthetic, architectural, didactic, domestic, historical, laborious, linguistic, mechanical, philosophical, poetic, sensory, symbolic - contained in this house. As it takes shape in the reader's mind, the sense of building unfolds, constructing once again Heidegger's unity: building-dwelling-thinking.

The book owes its arresting title to Joseph Rykwert, chairman of the doctoral program in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, who invited Mr. Rybczynski to address his seminar on the subject of a design competition sponsored by an Italian journal. The author responded, ''The most beautiful house in the world is the one that you build for yourself.'' In a previous study, ''Home: A Short History of an Idea,'' Mr. Rybczynski, who teaches architecture at McGill University in Montreal, went beyond architecture to provide a fascinating historical exploration of domestic well-being. In his new book, he tells what it means to build his own home.

First Mr. Rybczynski dreamed of a boat, then of a shelter to build it in - something between a shed and a cathedral. He and his wife, Shirley Hallam, decided to include temporary living quarters in the plan, with the idea of constructing a house nearby sometime in the future. They chose a site, he ruminated over designs, enlisted the help of his wife and his friend Vikram Bhatt, an Indian architect. They poured a foundation before completing the design. In vacation periods, on weekends and afternoons after work they put their energies into the project. Mr. Rybczynski assembled notes, made drawings, jotted down reflections on architecture and reviewed the experience of his practice. This building, in the reader's mind, grows larger than a shed or even a cathedral; it concretizes architecture and all its connections.

As time passed the author wondered: a boatbuilding workshop or a house? The living quarters expanded and the intended boat shrank from dory ketch to catboat. The building should look traditional; it must fit the location, speak the local language. He chose the form of a barn. Vast barns dominated the landscape, he explains, ''and if my building was to fit it, it could only be as a little offspring of these heroic leviathans.''

For a year and a half he immersed himself in its paper existence, gestating a hybrid dream that looked like a barn but sheltered boatbuilding at the west end, living quarters at the east. Then these three builders, colonists in the meadow, people with little experience in construction, put up frame and sheathing in a few weeks, working with hand tools. They changed the place, occupied the meadow; it was ''the reenactment of a primeval process that began with the first hut erected in a forest clearing, and it gave me the feeling of playing out an ancient ritual.'' At sunset the glass bottles of the final wall ''blazed with the amber and emerald colors of several hundred wine and liquor bottles - a bacchanalian rose window.''

The physical house sank the maritime dream, partly in the weariness of construction, partly by fulfillment. He explains: ''After years of designing on the drawing table . . . I had wanted to build something, anything, with my own hands and with proper tools and real materials.'' The Rybczynskis turned the boatbuilding workshop into living quarters, decided to make a comfortable permanent home instead of temporary shelter. This transformation changed Shirley from an associate builder into a client, who challenged him with questions, objections, demands. She had a better knowledge of house design than he, ''not of construction but of the details, of the minutiae of everyday life that constitute a home.'' She refused improvised solutions and rejected an inconvenient kitchen, insisting on a design that would not hide things in cupboards; she suggested important modifications in other rooms as well. Furthermore, the house did not look right; she wanted to dwell in a home, not a building that looked like a barn. It lacked the familiar signs of human habitation: proper windows, a porch, a chimney, a real front door. After the final changes, including a front door and portico, the house spoke a new message. ''It was a comforting sight as one came down the long drive. 'Welcome home,' it said.'' Five years after Mr. Rybczynski made his first sketch of a boatbuilding shed, he and his wife moved in.

The book acknowledges the wisdom of the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, that a house shelters daydreaming. At home it is safe to let the mind drift, to let imagination wander. And dreams contain houses. Even though the author still calls his home ''The Boathouse,'' he concludes: ''My house had begun with the dream of a boat. The dream had run aground - I was now rooted in place.''

Most readers of this book are spared the labor and frustration as well as the fulfillment eloquently described here. Until recently it was not unusual for people to build their own homes - a privilege still reserved to the so-called underdeveloped world. For us, the experience is fragmented, divided among designers, contractors, tradesmen, brokers, dwellers. We may not be able or willing to dwell in houses we design and build, but this book makes it possible to recover in our imaginations that lost unity of experience.

The illustrations, often crucial in an architectural book, are disappointing. Mr. Rybczynski claims the sketches are his graphic record of an inner conversation and offers 14 drawings by his own hand. Unfortunately, they are tiny, but they are compensated for by lucid, eloquent word pictures and the inner conversation keeps the reader charmed to the last page.

This is a beautifully written book that provides some very nice insights into what architects do. The author uses a simple story of his adventures in building a home as a launching point for discussions on such varied topics as the history of toys (and on play in general), the history of barns, and a discussion of other authors (Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stephenson, etc.) who designed and built their own homes. This is definitely NOT a how-to book!

I suspect that the author is a better writer than he is an architect; his tendency towards excursions away from the main point is better suited for a book than for a house. I think that most of us would find his finished home to be a bit odd.

In our book club, the men tended to like the book somewhat more than the women. A few complained about the lack of pictures in the discussions of famous buildings. Also, keep your dictionary handy while reading this book; I have a fair vocabulary but found myself frequently looking up new words.

All in all, a very pleasant (and educational) read.

This book by the author of "Home: A Short History of an Idea" (1986) is a more subjective and less disciplined examination of that same topic. Professor Rybczynski uses his experience as an immigrant trying to "fit in" as a lens for looking at what in means to build ones own home. The skeleton of this story is the author's own decision to build a shed to which he can retreat on weekends (for more on weekends, read the author's "Waiting for the Weekend," 1991) and build a boat he can sail away in. At some point the shed becomes more of a barn and then, when he finally abandons his plan to build a boat, it becomes a permanent home for himself and his wife. For me, the book is less about architecture, the act or craft of building, and more about morphing and the undpredictable ways life unfolds. Taken in that vein, Rybczynski's story can be appreciated as a spiritual journey with many sidetrips and gentle awakenings. He is self-critical, but not self-deprecating. And he infuses his tale with enough humor to keep the reader interested without taxing credibility. I especially enjoyed his description of his wife, Shirley, who does some morphing of her own. At the beginning (when the couple was building a mere boathouse), she is little more than an extra pair of hands; when the couple decides to make the structure they have been building into their home, Shirley suddenly becomes a full-fledged "client," full of opinions and demands.

Although, Rybczynski describes several impressive architect conceived and built houses (such as Wright's Fallingwater and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth house), it is the houses built by their owners that he most celebrates--Mark Twain's home in Hartford, Connecticutt, Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford, Robert Lewis Stevenson's Vailima in Samoa, artists Carl and Karin Larsson's much documented Lilla Hyttnas in Sundborn, Sweden, and Carl Jung's home in Bollingen, Switzerland. "It is no coincidence," writes Rybczynski, "that Stevenson, Scott, Clemens, Larsson, Castrejon, and I were less than forty years old when we built our homes.... The process of building, for all of us, was a process of installing ourselves in a place, of establishing a spot where it would be safe to dream. We had to be old enough to recognize the particularity--and limits--of our dreams, but not too old to believe in them....My house had begun with the dream of a boat. The dream had run aground--I was now rooted in place." (pp. 190, 193)

This was an absolutely wonderful book. Anyone interested in designing and building their own house should start by reading "The Most Beautiful House in the World." Even though designing a house was not his original intention, Rybczynski related vital insights into the process of creating a living space specifically tailored to your own needs. I am using many of his ideas to design my own home. Thanks Witold.

this refers to the 1989 Penguin Edition-

Asa mechanical engineer in my late thirties I started to know what architecture was all about and its relation to design. It turns out that its not easy to have a comprehensive introduction to the theme. Fortunately, Through Amazon and its reviews and suggested I bought this wonderful book and I was captivated, not only by the perspective it gives on the architecs work, but also on the insight about design it provides.

I have to agree with another reviewer this book has little to do with home building and is much adieu about nothing. In the end I was a little digusted at what got built....but then again what is beautiful?

I am a fan of the author and this is my 3rd read by him. I do have to warn potential readers that sometimes this book rambles on about topics most readers would have VERY little interest in. On the flip side the book does contain passages that are highly entertaining. Its about 50/50

This is a book that comes in and out of focus, a style of writing I believe the author enjoys. I guess in order to get books out in the marketplace as often as Witold does he must resort to digressing on just about any topic that pops into his mind.

With that said, he is an intellect...he's well traveled and leads what I believe to be a pretty interesting life.

This is an average book, I was expecting a bit more about home building and a bit less esoteric rhetoric. But then again, nothing churns out books better than rambling away.

This book is like a conversation with an architect and as conversations sometimes go, Rybczynski goes on many rabbit trails, some interesting, some tedious.

And then he will land upon a nugget of real value to someone interested in designing a house. Things like, "A building has to be simple enough to grasp and remember," and "Determining the shape of the roof is the most important decision the designer of a building must make," and a classic rule to remember, "reduce the size of elements as the eye moves up the facade."

The pleasure of a window is a function not only of its proper disposition in the room and of the view that it presents but also of its orientation with respect to the sun:
north facing allows an even and clear illumination
east facing lets in cheerful morning rays
west facing admits the glowing light of the late afternoon
south facing receives "pure sun, and a clear light" It permits the low winter light to warm the interior.

The book was written to tell the story of Rybczynski's barn-cum-home and that is mildly interesting. The real interest is in the information he gives the reader about building and designing in general.

If you are interested in just the facts of architecture, buy a text book. If you are looking for a conversation about architecture you will enjoy this book.

A book about building a boat house develops into a book of philosophy and learning about many different things. This is the sort of book that stays with you for many years. Unique.

This book, an extension in action of the literal expressed in the earlier historic study "Home," takes notion to application in the form of constructing a boat house. Interwoven into the text is an historic overview -albeit briefly- of seventeenth to twentieth century architecture (mies, le corbisier, wright), the elements, motifs, and functional aspects associated with the broader field. Along the way one has the sense the author is being contemplative (although not digressive) in the approach toward considering all phasesof development; a sometimes apt metaphor for the arrival at both the functional and practical. The book itself is well arranged, the letterhead holding sturdy upon the page. It is compact, holds well in the hand and is highly accessible: one could easily read in one sitting. Of interest for anyone engaged in projects in addition to their immediate structure.

It was a pleasing effor