What do you think?
Rate this book
How Architecture Works: A Humanist's Toolkit
An essential toolkit for understanding architecture as both art form and the setting for our everyday lives
We spend most of our days and nights in buildings, living and working and sometimes playing. Buildings often overawe us with their beauty. Architecture is both setting for our everyday lives and public art form―but it remains mysterious to most of us.
In How Architecture Works , Witold Rybczynski, one of our best, most stylish critics and winner of the Vincent Scully Prize for his architectural writing, answers our most fundamental questions about how good―and not-so-good―buildings are designed and constructed. Introducing the reader to the rich and varied world of modern architecture, he takes us behind the scenes, revealing how architects as different as Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, and Robert A. M. Stern envision and create their designs. He teaches us how to "read" plans, how buildings respond to their settings, and how the smallest detail―of a stair balustrade, for instance―can convey an architect's vision. Ranging widely from a war memorial in London to an opera house in St. Petersburg, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to a famous architect's private retreat in downtown Princeton, How Architecture Works , explains the central elements that make up good building design. It is an enlightening humanist's toolkit for thinking about the built environment and seeing it afresh.
"Architecture, if it is any good, speaks to all of us," Rybczynski writes. This revelatory book is his grand tour of architecture today.
We spend most of our days and nights in buildings, living and working and sometimes playing. Buildings often overawe us with their beauty. Architecture is both setting for our everyday lives and public art form―but it remains mysterious to most of us.
In How Architecture Works , Witold Rybczynski, one of our best, most stylish critics and winner of the Vincent Scully Prize for his architectural writing, answers our most fundamental questions about how good―and not-so-good―buildings are designed and constructed. Introducing the reader to the rich and varied world of modern architecture, he takes us behind the scenes, revealing how architects as different as Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, and Robert A. M. Stern envision and create their designs. He teaches us how to "read" plans, how buildings respond to their settings, and how the smallest detail―of a stair balustrade, for instance―can convey an architect's vision. Ranging widely from a war memorial in London to an opera house in St. Petersburg, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., to a famous architect's private retreat in downtown Princeton, How Architecture Works , explains the central elements that make up good building design. It is an enlightening humanist's toolkit for thinking about the built environment and seeing it afresh.
"Architecture, if it is any good, speaks to all of us," Rybczynski writes. This revelatory book is his grand tour of architecture today.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 2013
110 people are currently reading
1147 people want to read
About the author
Witold Rybczynski
57 books176 followersWitold Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh, of Polish parentage, raised in London, and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, where he also taught for twenty years. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also co-edits the Wharton Real Estate Review. Rybczynski has designed and built houses as a registered architect, as well as doing practical experiments in low-cost housing, which took him to Mexico, Nigeria, India, the Philippines, and China.
(From www.witoldrybczynski.com)
(From www.witoldrybczynski.com)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
November 7, 2014
Witold Rybczynski is rightly celebrated as an architect and professor who is bringing architecture to the people.
This book will, unfortunately, not enhance that reputation. Rybczynski's purpose with this book is two-fold: First, to provide the casual reader with an understanding of how the components of architecture come together to make a "good" or "bad" building. Second, to provide the casual reader with a sense of how to judge architecture in a humanist way.
Rybczynski only half-suceeds in his first goal. Architecture has a host of jargonistic terms developed over six centuries: Architrave, crypto-porticus, gambrel, mullion, pilaster, spandrel, tympanum, wagon vault, and a hundred terms in between. Although Rybczynski doesn't abandon the use of such terms in his text, he keeps them to a minimum and defines as clearly as he can the terms he does use. Rybczynski's real strategy is to talk about architecture in terms the casual reader can understand: Setting, site, plan, structure, skin, details, style, past, and taste. While the setting might be urban or mountainous or desert, the site itself may be flat, hilly, wet, or sloping. The plot one owns can be square, rectangular, oddly shaped, or so large that it doesn't matter. The structure might be a home, a vacation home, a concert hall, a hotel, or an arena. And form may -- or may not! -- follow the function of the structure. The skin could be materials from wood to steel to stucco to concrete, and have an infinite kind of texture, color, or style.
Rybczynski does his best to provide examples of everything he discusses. But that's where the book only half-succeeds. There are many black-and-white photographs in the book, but they are not nearly numerous enough. Most of them are not more than post-card sized, which means many of them don't showcase what Rybczynski is talking about very well.
Still, this is better than most architecture books do. The problem is that Rybczynski doesn't spend more than a few sentences -- four or five at best -- on each example. That left me really hungering for a more in-depth description and discussion. Without pictures, that's really needed. But Rybczynski doesn't provide it.
Rybczynski's second goal is to provide the reader with a way of judging architecture. While "good" and "bad", he admits, are hard if not impossible to define, Rybczynski tries hard to instill in the reader a sense of what constitutes "good taste". Better authors than he have tried, and failed. In a relativistic society, "good taste" simply doesn't cut it.
Oddly, Rybczynski undercuts his own argument a fair amount of the time. He opens his book with a discussion of a modernist building in a Mid-South American city which ignores its Neoclassical neighbors. Rybczynski denigrates this building (which was widely praised) for ignoring its setting. Yet, in a city like Washington, D.C., where Neoclassical buildings as common as snot-rags in a flu ward, that very sameness of style has been strongly criticized for imposing a uniform, white blandness on the town. Surely there has to be more to Rybczynski's criticism than "follow the similarity"? Yes, but Rybczynski doesn't really address it.
Some of the great architectural problems of the age aren't really addressed by Rybczynski either. Most causal readers love the Modernist structures of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the flowing lines of American architect Frank Gehry, geometric vibrancy of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, the melting organic forms of Zaha Hadid, the sailing-inspired forms of Tom Wright.
But all these architects are monumentalists. Their structures are overpoweringly large, huge, massive. They were built by the superrich, for the superrich, and largely ignore setting, site, plan, style, past, and taste.
Monumentalism is wildly popular. Whether it's Albert Speer's Reich Party Congress Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany; the oppressive Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea; Le Corbusier's "banlieus" in Paris; the Streamline Moderne of the looming Lomonosov Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia; the kitschy neo-Arabian Modernist Atlantis, The Palm, in Dubai; or the Federal Triangle complex in Washington, D.C. -- monumentalism is "in". People respond strongly and positively to it, which is why monumentalism is the favorite of dictators, fascists, and soviets.
But is it good architecture? Why is "organic" the "it architecture" of today, while classics like the Woolworth Building, Fallingwater, the Tate Modern, the Jefferson Memorial, Lever House, Esherick House, Trellick Tower, and the Transamerica Pyramid are ignored?
Rybczynski never quite addresses the issue of fads, or the appeal of big-but-bad architecture. He talks a lot about taste, but never digs into the meat of the issue and never comes up with a line in the sand over which some architecture must not cross.
In the end, although Rybczynski says he's arguing for a humanist architecture, he never defines humanism well enough for his reader to be able to say, "On this side of the line is good humanist architecture, and on that side is bad architecture."
Rybczynski's relativistic approach to taste is a bigger failure than his inability to fully explain some of the concepts he raises earlier in the book.
This book will, unfortunately, not enhance that reputation. Rybczynski's purpose with this book is two-fold: First, to provide the casual reader with an understanding of how the components of architecture come together to make a "good" or "bad" building. Second, to provide the casual reader with a sense of how to judge architecture in a humanist way.
Rybczynski only half-suceeds in his first goal. Architecture has a host of jargonistic terms developed over six centuries: Architrave, crypto-porticus, gambrel, mullion, pilaster, spandrel, tympanum, wagon vault, and a hundred terms in between. Although Rybczynski doesn't abandon the use of such terms in his text, he keeps them to a minimum and defines as clearly as he can the terms he does use. Rybczynski's real strategy is to talk about architecture in terms the casual reader can understand: Setting, site, plan, structure, skin, details, style, past, and taste. While the setting might be urban or mountainous or desert, the site itself may be flat, hilly, wet, or sloping. The plot one owns can be square, rectangular, oddly shaped, or so large that it doesn't matter. The structure might be a home, a vacation home, a concert hall, a hotel, or an arena. And form may -- or may not! -- follow the function of the structure. The skin could be materials from wood to steel to stucco to concrete, and have an infinite kind of texture, color, or style.
Rybczynski does his best to provide examples of everything he discusses. But that's where the book only half-succeeds. There are many black-and-white photographs in the book, but they are not nearly numerous enough. Most of them are not more than post-card sized, which means many of them don't showcase what Rybczynski is talking about very well.
Still, this is better than most architecture books do. The problem is that Rybczynski doesn't spend more than a few sentences -- four or five at best -- on each example. That left me really hungering for a more in-depth description and discussion. Without pictures, that's really needed. But Rybczynski doesn't provide it.
Rybczynski's second goal is to provide the reader with a way of judging architecture. While "good" and "bad", he admits, are hard if not impossible to define, Rybczynski tries hard to instill in the reader a sense of what constitutes "good taste". Better authors than he have tried, and failed. In a relativistic society, "good taste" simply doesn't cut it.
Oddly, Rybczynski undercuts his own argument a fair amount of the time. He opens his book with a discussion of a modernist building in a Mid-South American city which ignores its Neoclassical neighbors. Rybczynski denigrates this building (which was widely praised) for ignoring its setting. Yet, in a city like Washington, D.C., where Neoclassical buildings as common as snot-rags in a flu ward, that very sameness of style has been strongly criticized for imposing a uniform, white blandness on the town. Surely there has to be more to Rybczynski's criticism than "follow the similarity"? Yes, but Rybczynski doesn't really address it.
Some of the great architectural problems of the age aren't really addressed by Rybczynski either. Most causal readers love the Modernist structures of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the flowing lines of American architect Frank Gehry, geometric vibrancy of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, the melting organic forms of Zaha Hadid, the sailing-inspired forms of Tom Wright.
But all these architects are monumentalists. Their structures are overpoweringly large, huge, massive. They were built by the superrich, for the superrich, and largely ignore setting, site, plan, style, past, and taste.
Monumentalism is wildly popular. Whether it's Albert Speer's Reich Party Congress Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany; the oppressive Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea; Le Corbusier's "banlieus" in Paris; the Streamline Moderne of the looming Lomonosov Moscow State University in Moscow, Russia; the kitschy neo-Arabian Modernist Atlantis, The Palm, in Dubai; or the Federal Triangle complex in Washington, D.C. -- monumentalism is "in". People respond strongly and positively to it, which is why monumentalism is the favorite of dictators, fascists, and soviets.
But is it good architecture? Why is "organic" the "it architecture" of today, while classics like the Woolworth Building, Fallingwater, the Tate Modern, the Jefferson Memorial, Lever House, Esherick House, Trellick Tower, and the Transamerica Pyramid are ignored?
Rybczynski never quite addresses the issue of fads, or the appeal of big-but-bad architecture. He talks a lot about taste, but never digs into the meat of the issue and never comes up with a line in the sand over which some architecture must not cross.
In the end, although Rybczynski says he's arguing for a humanist architecture, he never defines humanism well enough for his reader to be able to say, "On this side of the line is good humanist architecture, and on that side is bad architecture."
Rybczynski's relativistic approach to taste is a bigger failure than his inability to fully explain some of the concepts he raises earlier in the book.
December 5, 2013
After reading 3 of Witold Rybczynski's 10 books, I definitely need to take a break. I now see that he can continue to write about architectural principles using examples from American architecture, longer than I will have the strength to read them. This books takes themes such as "site," "plan," "structure," "skin," and "details" and describes famous examples for each. I liked his book "The Most Beautiful House in the World." This one seems more formulaic.
November 27, 2021
Very good as a primer. I had no background in art or architecture and this was a thorough and well-organized introduction. The book could be improved with more illustrations and photos, but those are clearly very expensive to put in print. That said, I found it helpful to have Google image search up while reading.
August 26, 2021
Parę rozdziałów w środku jest przynudnawych (materiały, detale), ale potem znowu robi się ciekawie. Oczywiście Europejczyk by to inaczej napisał (i mówię nie tylko o doborze przykładów), ale brawa za świetną popularyzację. Czuję się wzbogacona :)
September 28, 2022
Baca buku ini rasanya "jamais vu", merasa asing terhadap sesuatu yang seharusnya familiar (kebalikan dari "deja vu", di mana kita merasa familiar terhadap sesuatu yang sebenarnya tidak pernah kita temui).
Sebagai lulusan jurusan arsitektur, seharusnya saya familiar dengan topiknya. Tapi kok nggak ya?
Setelah membaca dua bab, baru sadar alasannya : buku ini membahas teori-teori arsitektur dalam bentuk studi kasus yang rata-rata membahas bangunan-bangunan di Amerika Utara. Karenanya saya tidak begitu familiar, karena saat kuliah dulu nama-nama arsiteknya hanya diajarkan di mata kuliah Arsitektur Modern atau Struktur tahun ketiga. Dan saya dulu bukan mahasiswa yang rajin baca buku referensi arsitektur modern 😁
Witold Rybczynski adalah arsitek Kanada-Amerika, profesor di University of Pennsylvania (dan sebelumnya di McGill University Montreal), sepanjang hidupnya banyak menulis tentang arsitektur di majalah dan suratkabar, serta menulis buku-buku populer tentang arsitektur yang ditujukan BUKAN untuk sesama arsitek, di antaranya adalah buku ini.
Menurutnya, buku "How Architecture Works" ditulisnya untuk membantu pembaca non-arsitek supaya mendapat gambaran apa yang dikerjakan oleh arsitek dari segi praktis dan estetis, dalam usaha memahami apa dan bagaimana arsitektur itu.
Di buku ini ia menjabarkan sepuluh topik yang berkaitan dengan arsitektur dan bagaimana para arsitek kontemporer mengolahnya.
Tiga topik pertama adalah mengenai hal-hal yang paling mendasar:
ide perancangan; setting, berkaitan dengan lokasi bangunan relatif terhadap sekitarnya; dan site, ini lebih tentang dengan lokasi geografis dan bentang alamnya, berkaitan dengan kontur tanah, arah sinar matahari,dll.
Empat topik berikutnya adalah tentang berbagai aspek ekspresi desain seorang arsitek:
denah, struktur, fasade atau kulit luar sebuah bangunan, dan detail.
Tiga topik terakhir membahas gaya dan selera arsitektur, serta pengaruh masa lalu/sejarah/tradisi dalam arsitektur.
Rybczynski fokus membahas bangunan-bangunan yang pernah ia kunjungi sendiri, karenanya hampir semuanya adalah bangunan-bangunan di Amerika Utara dan Eropa.
Para arsitek yang banyak dibahas di buku ini antara lain adalah Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright dari generasi modernis awal, kemudian para arsitek kontemporer di antaranya Frank Gehry, Robert Stern, Renzo Piano, Louis Kahn, Norman Foster, Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, James Stirling, Robert Venturi.
Buat saya pribadi, ini seperti mengulang kuliah Arsitektur Modern-nya pak Eko Purwono, tapi kali ini saya memperhatikan pelajaran, dan rajin membaca referensi. Menarik sekali mempelajari bagaimana setiap arsitek melakukan beragam pendekatan desain untuk setiap proyeknya. Ada yang menggabungkan tradisi dan modern, ada yang membuang tradisi jauh-jauh, ada yang berangkat dari fungsi (form follows function), ada yang berangkat dari bentuk luar, denahnya belakangan (seperti Frank Gehry).
Kadang suatu desain tampak bagus dalam skala maket, namun ketika bangunannya sudah jadi, ternyata gagal menjalankan fungsinya dengan baik, seringkali karena si arsitek terlalu mengedepankan ide/konsep alih-alih fungsi. Contohnya, sebuah perpustakaan dengan dinding kaca, membuat para pustakawan protes karena sinar matahari langsung merusak buku, karenanya rak-rak buku harus dijauhkan dari dinding, mengurangi area efektif. Atau sebuah area baca yang tampak muram karena arsiteknya bersikeras menggunakan material beton ekspos yang dingin dan warna redup. "Rasanya seperti berada di basement saja."
Baru-baru ini diberitakan tentang sebuah museum/galeri karya Mies van der Rohe di Berlin yang sebenarnya tidak berfungsi dengan baik sebagai sebuah museum, justru karena pilihan desain arsiteknya.
James Stirling berpendapat, seorang arsitek seharusnya tidak melulu memikirkan ekspresi atau teknik tertentu (gaya arsitektur tertentu) sebagai solusi arsitektur. Pertimbangan manusiawi (pemakainya) harus tetap menjadi prioritas utama pengembangan desain.
"Jangan terkurung oleh style," kata Renzo Piano. "Salah satu keindahan arsitektur justru karena tergantung dia ada di mana, kapan, dan untuk apa. Arsitektur adalah cermin sebuah momen, dan manusia pemakainya."
Karena semua topik dibahas melalui studi kasus, dan memperlihatkan bagaimana setiap arsitek mengolah 'bahan' yang sama menjadi karya yang berbeda, Rybczynski secara langsung dan tidak langsung mengemukakan pendapatnya tentang arsitektur, bahwa tidak ada satu pendekatan arsitektur yang paling benar. "Benar" bagi satu arsitek, bisa jadi "salah" bagi arsitek lain.
Renzo Piano menyatakannya dengan tepat: "This is what you get when you (the architect) are yourself and they are themselves."
"Meskipun saya sulit menerima suatu bangunan yang gagal menjalankan fungsinya, atau tidak mempedulikan lingkungannya, atau buruk konstruksinya, tidak berarti saya tidak bisa menghargai berbagai pendekatan desain para arsitek. Saya harap semua yang telah saya jabarkan di sini, dapat membantu memahami keragaman ini," tutup Rybczynski.
===
Setelah membaca buku ini, saya jadi berpikir tentang 'romantisme arsitektur' vs 'pengalaman arsitektur'. Maksudnya bagaimana?
Seperti yang ditulis Rybczynski di buku ini, bahwa "lukisan dan patung adalah karya seni yang bisa dinikmati secara mandiri, namun karya arsitektur selalu, tidak bisa tidak, menjadi bagian dari sebuah tempat."
Seringkali kita melihat karya arsitektur para arsitek 'top' hanya dari foto, tetapi ketika kita kunjungi, barulah kita bisa mengalami dan menyerap secara keseluruhan efek arsitektur dari bangunan tersebut. Sesuatu yang tampak 'wow' di foto, atau yang terasa 'wow' di pikiran karena 'karya arsitek top lho', bisa jadi setelah dikunjungi menghasilkan efek yang berbeda. Begitupun sebaliknya.
Saya tinggal tidak jauh dari 3 bangunan karya Mies van der Rohe. "Wow"? Hmmm... meskipun pada masanya bisa jadi rancangannya memang sesuai 'zeitgeist', tapi yang saya lihat dan alami, bangunan kotak tersebut adalah komplek apartemen menengah ke bawah yang sekarang kurang terurus, dan berada di daerah hiruk pikuk lalu lintas mobil dan kereta komuter. Bangunan apartemen berdinding kaca permanen tanpa bukaan yang membuat hawa tak tertahankan saat musim panas dan musim dingin.
Kemarin saya ke Jersey City, karena ingin tahu daerah Hamilton Park yang (kalau lihat di foto) banyak bangunan brownstone bagus. Secara individual, ya, memang bangunannya banyak yang bagus. Tapi kalau memperhatikan faktor sekelilingnya, jalan-jalan satu arah yang macet dan penuh kendaraan parkir (karena tidak ada garasi), hiruk pikuk suara klakson, trotoar yang tidak rata, saya pikir ini daerah yang tidak nyaman untuk ditinggali.
Cerita lain yang ada hubungannya, saya baca di artikel tentang Rybczynski (bukan di buku ini), ketika ia dihadiahi kursi rancangan seorang arsitek ternama yang sudah lama diidam-idamkannya. Ternyata setelah didudukinya, "Ah, ternyata nggak nyaman duduk di sini".
Hal seperti ini pula yang membuat "barang bermerk" bisa berjaya, ketika romantisme menang dari fungsi.
Kadang romantisme ide perlu 'dibangunkan' atau 'diturunkan ke bumi', dipertemukan dengan realita melalui pengetahuan dan pengalaman manusiawi.
-dydy-
Sebagai lulusan jurusan arsitektur, seharusnya saya familiar dengan topiknya. Tapi kok nggak ya?
Setelah membaca dua bab, baru sadar alasannya : buku ini membahas teori-teori arsitektur dalam bentuk studi kasus yang rata-rata membahas bangunan-bangunan di Amerika Utara. Karenanya saya tidak begitu familiar, karena saat kuliah dulu nama-nama arsiteknya hanya diajarkan di mata kuliah Arsitektur Modern atau Struktur tahun ketiga. Dan saya dulu bukan mahasiswa yang rajin baca buku referensi arsitektur modern 😁
Witold Rybczynski adalah arsitek Kanada-Amerika, profesor di University of Pennsylvania (dan sebelumnya di McGill University Montreal), sepanjang hidupnya banyak menulis tentang arsitektur di majalah dan suratkabar, serta menulis buku-buku populer tentang arsitektur yang ditujukan BUKAN untuk sesama arsitek, di antaranya adalah buku ini.
Menurutnya, buku "How Architecture Works" ditulisnya untuk membantu pembaca non-arsitek supaya mendapat gambaran apa yang dikerjakan oleh arsitek dari segi praktis dan estetis, dalam usaha memahami apa dan bagaimana arsitektur itu.
Di buku ini ia menjabarkan sepuluh topik yang berkaitan dengan arsitektur dan bagaimana para arsitek kontemporer mengolahnya.
Tiga topik pertama adalah mengenai hal-hal yang paling mendasar:
ide perancangan; setting, berkaitan dengan lokasi bangunan relatif terhadap sekitarnya; dan site, ini lebih tentang dengan lokasi geografis dan bentang alamnya, berkaitan dengan kontur tanah, arah sinar matahari,dll.
Empat topik berikutnya adalah tentang berbagai aspek ekspresi desain seorang arsitek:
denah, struktur, fasade atau kulit luar sebuah bangunan, dan detail.
Tiga topik terakhir membahas gaya dan selera arsitektur, serta pengaruh masa lalu/sejarah/tradisi dalam arsitektur.
Rybczynski fokus membahas bangunan-bangunan yang pernah ia kunjungi sendiri, karenanya hampir semuanya adalah bangunan-bangunan di Amerika Utara dan Eropa.
Para arsitek yang banyak dibahas di buku ini antara lain adalah Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright dari generasi modernis awal, kemudian para arsitek kontemporer di antaranya Frank Gehry, Robert Stern, Renzo Piano, Louis Kahn, Norman Foster, Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, James Stirling, Robert Venturi.
Buat saya pribadi, ini seperti mengulang kuliah Arsitektur Modern-nya pak Eko Purwono, tapi kali ini saya memperhatikan pelajaran, dan rajin membaca referensi. Menarik sekali mempelajari bagaimana setiap arsitek melakukan beragam pendekatan desain untuk setiap proyeknya. Ada yang menggabungkan tradisi dan modern, ada yang membuang tradisi jauh-jauh, ada yang berangkat dari fungsi (form follows function), ada yang berangkat dari bentuk luar, denahnya belakangan (seperti Frank Gehry).
Kadang suatu desain tampak bagus dalam skala maket, namun ketika bangunannya sudah jadi, ternyata gagal menjalankan fungsinya dengan baik, seringkali karena si arsitek terlalu mengedepankan ide/konsep alih-alih fungsi. Contohnya, sebuah perpustakaan dengan dinding kaca, membuat para pustakawan protes karena sinar matahari langsung merusak buku, karenanya rak-rak buku harus dijauhkan dari dinding, mengurangi area efektif. Atau sebuah area baca yang tampak muram karena arsiteknya bersikeras menggunakan material beton ekspos yang dingin dan warna redup. "Rasanya seperti berada di basement saja."
Baru-baru ini diberitakan tentang sebuah museum/galeri karya Mies van der Rohe di Berlin yang sebenarnya tidak berfungsi dengan baik sebagai sebuah museum, justru karena pilihan desain arsiteknya.
James Stirling berpendapat, seorang arsitek seharusnya tidak melulu memikirkan ekspresi atau teknik tertentu (gaya arsitektur tertentu) sebagai solusi arsitektur. Pertimbangan manusiawi (pemakainya) harus tetap menjadi prioritas utama pengembangan desain.
"Jangan terkurung oleh style," kata Renzo Piano. "Salah satu keindahan arsitektur justru karena tergantung dia ada di mana, kapan, dan untuk apa. Arsitektur adalah cermin sebuah momen, dan manusia pemakainya."
Karena semua topik dibahas melalui studi kasus, dan memperlihatkan bagaimana setiap arsitek mengolah 'bahan' yang sama menjadi karya yang berbeda, Rybczynski secara langsung dan tidak langsung mengemukakan pendapatnya tentang arsitektur, bahwa tidak ada satu pendekatan arsitektur yang paling benar. "Benar" bagi satu arsitek, bisa jadi "salah" bagi arsitek lain.
Renzo Piano menyatakannya dengan tepat: "This is what you get when you (the architect) are yourself and they are themselves."
"Meskipun saya sulit menerima suatu bangunan yang gagal menjalankan fungsinya, atau tidak mempedulikan lingkungannya, atau buruk konstruksinya, tidak berarti saya tidak bisa menghargai berbagai pendekatan desain para arsitek. Saya harap semua yang telah saya jabarkan di sini, dapat membantu memahami keragaman ini," tutup Rybczynski.
===
Setelah membaca buku ini, saya jadi berpikir tentang 'romantisme arsitektur' vs 'pengalaman arsitektur'. Maksudnya bagaimana?
Seperti yang ditulis Rybczynski di buku ini, bahwa "lukisan dan patung adalah karya seni yang bisa dinikmati secara mandiri, namun karya arsitektur selalu, tidak bisa tidak, menjadi bagian dari sebuah tempat."
Seringkali kita melihat karya arsitektur para arsitek 'top' hanya dari foto, tetapi ketika kita kunjungi, barulah kita bisa mengalami dan menyerap secara keseluruhan efek arsitektur dari bangunan tersebut. Sesuatu yang tampak 'wow' di foto, atau yang terasa 'wow' di pikiran karena 'karya arsitek top lho', bisa jadi setelah dikunjungi menghasilkan efek yang berbeda. Begitupun sebaliknya.
Saya tinggal tidak jauh dari 3 bangunan karya Mies van der Rohe. "Wow"? Hmmm... meskipun pada masanya bisa jadi rancangannya memang sesuai 'zeitgeist', tapi yang saya lihat dan alami, bangunan kotak tersebut adalah komplek apartemen menengah ke bawah yang sekarang kurang terurus, dan berada di daerah hiruk pikuk lalu lintas mobil dan kereta komuter. Bangunan apartemen berdinding kaca permanen tanpa bukaan yang membuat hawa tak tertahankan saat musim panas dan musim dingin.
Kemarin saya ke Jersey City, karena ingin tahu daerah Hamilton Park yang (kalau lihat di foto) banyak bangunan brownstone bagus. Secara individual, ya, memang bangunannya banyak yang bagus. Tapi kalau memperhatikan faktor sekelilingnya, jalan-jalan satu arah yang macet dan penuh kendaraan parkir (karena tidak ada garasi), hiruk pikuk suara klakson, trotoar yang tidak rata, saya pikir ini daerah yang tidak nyaman untuk ditinggali.
Cerita lain yang ada hubungannya, saya baca di artikel tentang Rybczynski (bukan di buku ini), ketika ia dihadiahi kursi rancangan seorang arsitek ternama yang sudah lama diidam-idamkannya. Ternyata setelah didudukinya, "Ah, ternyata nggak nyaman duduk di sini".
Hal seperti ini pula yang membuat "barang bermerk" bisa berjaya, ketika romantisme menang dari fungsi.
Kadang romantisme ide perlu 'dibangunkan' atau 'diturunkan ke bumi', dipertemukan dengan realita melalui pengetahuan dan pengalaman manusiawi.
-dydy-
March 3, 2014
Like all of Rybczynski's books this is well written and well organized. He knows how to write about architecture and does it in such a way as to make it understood by the non-expert. Straightforward explanation of what to look for. Traditional and solid. Deals with such elemental concepts as Site, Plan, Structure, Skin, Details and Style.
January 28, 2015
“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.'”
So begins a fantastic and humble journey through the world of Architecture in Witold Rybczynski’s How Architecture Works: A Humanist’s Toolkit. The beauty of the book lies in its inherent accessibility. Many architecture books aim to novelize the world of architecture either as textbooks or fantastical works of fiction: How Architecture Works does neither.
It is, rather, a book that requires the active thought and engagement of its reader, without the use of complex terms or scenarios. The book's aim is to lay the various and complex facets of architecture bare on the table, leaving no stone unturned. It is the closest I have seen a written work achieve at stripping away the prejudices and egos that architecture heralds almost as a banner of pride in our era of frantic change.
How Architecture Works is straightforwardly broken up into several chapters, each based on a theme. It begins with a fantastic introduction in which Rybcyznyski speaks to his background, his love of the built environment, and the goals of the book. This leads into the chapters of substance — Ideas, The Setting, Site, Plan, Structure, Skin, Details, Style, The Past and Taste — that are then followed by the welcomed surprise of a Glossary, something that even some textbooks are missing these days.
Each chapter does an excellent job of simply breaking down and describing architecture through its designated theme, from a largely neutral standpoint. They highlight sections of the craft that are perhaps exaggerated or filled with over-zealous solutions to much simpler problems, but also show how architecture can truly shine as the device it is meant to be, and how this positively affects our built environment.
A clear example of this simplicity is in Rybcyznyski's description of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial created by Maya Lin, a twenty-one-year-old Yale architecture student, at the time of its creation. Rybczynski focuses all of his attention on the straightforward nature of the design and the power that this carries through its meaning and strong connection with humanity. The author states that the competition brief (of which Lin beat out over fifteen hundred entries) asked for four simple considerations, “the memorial should be reflective and contemplative in character, it should harmonize with its surroundings, it should contain the names of those who had died in the conflict or who were still missing, and it should make no political statement about the war.”
Immediately parallels can be seen to a large number of modern day’s briefs. How many urban design calls-to-action state that spaces should have areas for contemplation or reflection and should harmonize with their surroundings? The number is too vast to list and this is because designers are being given the task more frequently of creating spaces for human beings once more. An art that seems to have been lost somewhere over the past decades.
Rybczynski speaks to this disconnection through highlighting the fact that “there are no [modern] Pritzker Prize winners in the top fifty,” of favorite buildings in the USA according to polls. He attributes the latter to a detachment from the past — a topic that has its own chapter and is very important to him. A brilliant and sharp quote seems to describe his position: “The alternative, only looking forward, produces what are sometimes called visionary buildings, but nothing fades as quickly as yesterday’s vision of tomorrow.”
Through powerful statements like this, Rybczynski criticizes the constant urge by designers and those in the industry to produce something 'ahead of its time': things that quickly fade into obscurity because we have ignored the past and looked solely to the future. Outside this constant pressure, it is no wonder that the works of the past were far more human-centric, harmonizing more readily between the natural environment and humans alike.
By all accounts, the industry of architecture is currently at a crossroads diverging into polar positions: that of either stunting ones voice to please the client and disturbing the proper flow of a design process, or on the other extreme, the “starchitects” and their wildly ambitious (and oft times unnecessary) approaches to design problems. Rybcznyski meanders his way through this complex political mess, and various others, with such ease that the reader barely notices and simply enjoys the vast number of memorable phrases. With respect to aesthetic preference, for example, he states: “...there’s no accounting for taste.” Similarly, he frequently speaks to the balance between art and function, and that in the end, people will pursue what they will pursue.
Ultimately, How Architecture Works lives up to its title, handing the reader a complete toolkit to all things architectural, with enough anecdotal story arcs to keep it nowhere near a textbook on the subject. Given how eloquently Rybcznyski writes, I think it is very appropriate to end with some of his words that have rung heavily in my head since I laid the book down:
While I find it hard to excuse a building that fails at a functional level, or that ignores its setting, or that is badly built, that does not mean that I cannot appreciate a variety of design approaches…but it is important to understand that architectural innovation, whether it is willful and questions established conventions, or considered and embraces old rules, never occurs in a vacuum…Yet architectural diversity is a good thing. An architect must hold strong convictions in order to create, but as users of architecture we should open our minds-and our eyes-to the richest of our surroundings. And allow the buildings to speak to us.
October 3, 2022
Like everything else by the author that I've read, an interesting and informative book about architecture and buildings. Each chapter focuses on a key element that feeds into an architect's work, from site and setting to style and taste. What I loved here was how the book explains the reasoning behind certain buildings I'm familiar with which have not made sense to me for one reason or another ("Oh, that's what the architect was doing there!"). I don't necessarily like those buildings any more than before, but I understand them better, and can begin to appreciate them for what they are.
But, and this is the only reason the book doesn't get a higher rating.... The author talks about a lot of buildings, all over the world. I'd never heard of half of them, or more. And unless you are yourself an architect or a student of the field, or you read the book with Wikipedia (and/or Google Street View) in your other hand, it seems unlikely you'd be familiar with most of them either. And that's fine as far as it goes, but while there are some drawings and photographs, there aren't that many, and they're all in black and white, so it's hard to relate to many of the examples. I don't think a single building gets more than two graphic elements. I'd love to have a version of this book that added 100 pages (or more) of color photographs, so I could actually see what its talking about.
But, and this is the only reason the book doesn't get a higher rating.... The author talks about a lot of buildings, all over the world. I'd never heard of half of them, or more. And unless you are yourself an architect or a student of the field, or you read the book with Wikipedia (and/or Google Street View) in your other hand, it seems unlikely you'd be familiar with most of them either. And that's fine as far as it goes, but while there are some drawings and photographs, there aren't that many, and they're all in black and white, so it's hard to relate to many of the examples. I don't think a single building gets more than two graphic elements. I'd love to have a version of this book that added 100 pages (or more) of color photographs, so I could actually see what its talking about.
May 20, 2019
Probably my second favorite book on architecture (the first being the insane Charles Moore book about houses). Mr. Rybczynski writes with clarity and care, and his tone and thoroughness provide an excellent approach to the most arcane of artistic disciplines. Of particular interest is the section late in the text where the author explores the houses the architects featured in the book built (or adapted) for themselves, a more useful tool for analyzing the roots of style and aesthetic than comparisons between commissioned projects.
I wish the author had built more structure into the book--How Architecture Works feels more like a survey than a thesis or didactic program, though it's telling of the author's skill and depth of knowledge that I actually wanted more theory rather than less. My only other complaint is that the word peripatetic showed up twice, peripatetic is one of those words you're only allowed to use once in a text because it sticks out like a sore thumb.
This is evidently Mr. Rybczynski's eighteenth book, I will keep an eye out for the other seventeen.
I wish the author had built more structure into the book--How Architecture Works feels more like a survey than a thesis or didactic program, though it's telling of the author's skill and depth of knowledge that I actually wanted more theory rather than less. My only other complaint is that the word peripatetic showed up twice, peripatetic is one of those words you're only allowed to use once in a text because it sticks out like a sore thumb.
This is evidently Mr. Rybczynski's eighteenth book, I will keep an eye out for the other seventeen.
March 16, 2021
In a non-pretentious but wise and knowledgable style, Rybczynski describes how buildings work through the various topics, of setting, skin, plan etc. It is an excellent device for exploring what we like and don't like about buildings. He opens by saying that he is not promoting any grand theory of architecture, and that humility goes far in allowing him to explore the contradictions in how we feel about buildings - how sometimes monumental works, sometimes tradition is more important and sometimes rules should be followed. This acknowledgment of the limits of theory is refreshing and illuminating, especially coming from one so well informed and thoughtful.
August 4, 2017
As a novice, I found this book to be very insightful, in that it revealed architecture (and its concepts) in perspectives to which I was previously oblivious.
Certainly not a textbook nor even an evolution or primer on architectural theory, instead the book highlights general concepts and discusses them through the work of various architects.
Certainly not a textbook nor even an evolution or primer on architectural theory, instead the book highlights general concepts and discusses them through the work of various architects.
February 19, 2020
I have no idea why I didn't mark this as finished for more than a year. It was a very liberal-arts-y consideration of architecture. I enjoyed it and it scratched the itch I've had for a long time regarding my wholesale ignorance of architecture. I can now add it to my dillatante list of information I now know just a little bit about--certainly enough to know how much more there is to know.
June 11, 2021
awiritten by a practicing architect. a lot less snarky than Vin Scully and the pictures were okay, but it might help to refer to page numbers or picture numbers of the pictures when they are mentioned in the text. The sections about memorial buildings and about architects' homes were especially interesting.
March 13, 2021
An unpretentious systemization of architecture that feels like Rybczynski is giving you a personal tour of the many buildings he discusses, or, lets speak. Could have benefited from more range beyond the well-trod ground of western/male "genius" architects and their works.
January 20, 2025
I wish I had read this earlier, when I was a student or something, since it is a good introduction on how the author thinks about buildings. It's very easy to digest, and I like the author's voice in describing the buildings we live in.
May 7, 2025
A perfect guide to understand how architecture works.
Written in a graceful style, this guide to the factors that count in evaluating the art of architecture welcomes us to a world tour of treasures conducted by a knowledgeable and discerning guide.
Written in a graceful style, this guide to the factors that count in evaluating the art of architecture welcomes us to a world tour of treasures conducted by a knowledgeable and discerning guide.
September 18, 2018
A wonderful primer on architecture. You will gain a newfound respect for for both monumental buildings as well as everyday detail.
March 20, 2019
Makes one look with fresh eyes at architecture.
April 28, 2023
had to read it for a class obvi, however i still get to count it towards my goal! not horrible, at some parts he’s funny, just not my preferred genre
February 7, 2021
Very good historical narrative of the essence of major architectural works in America's history and how the architects at that time delivered very interesting and notable works for the public and inhabitants of our diverse country to enjoy. Also a introduction into how architecture evolved and how engineers, technology, materials, and science was applied to meet their solutions. We are all constantly learning and evolving and these works are really an archive of who we were and are and how we experienced life to become who we now are. Also how architects have to have a vision of our feelings and emotion and relate it to our space, so we can enjoy our lives and livelihoods. It is not an easy task and only a few can transcend this puzzle on a timely way and within or close to our budgets. A few descriptions of the skills of famous architects helps us understand that we have to choose the right one dependent on our location, setting and site issues, and their experience in the genre. You can't build a bad prototype or the end result will be disastrous especially if you have let time expire and have spent all your critical funds. I have spent my life as a developer on major projects in a major city and wish all the politicians, city planners, neighborhood citizens, engineers, and all users had a sense of what developing good architecture needs from all involved. We need to be diverse, inclusive, and have safety, good mental and physical health that comes from living in a good environment and people around us! Thank you Witold for a primer on how good architecture evolves!
March 21, 2018
Witold Rybczynski's How Architecture Works is an overview of architecture in practice. The author describes what is architecture, why it is challenging, and, through ten not entirely distinct views grouped into three classes, how it works. Overall, the good analytical framework, sharp analysis, excellent examples, and accessible writing concur to make this book a very good read.
I liked most:
1/ The framework, which consists of three classes: A. Fundamentals, B. Craft, and C. Meta-architecture (discussion about architectural style, etc.) and, within them, ten (slightly overlapping) 'essential topics': A1. Idea, A2. Setting, A3. Site, B1. Plan, B2. Structure, B3. Skin, B4. Details, C1. (cultural) Style, C2. Past, and C3. (personal) Taste.
2/ The density of useful concepts and excellent examples. In particular, I found the concepts quite universal for any field with lasting (vs. throwaway) designs. I took notes on one-third of the pages I read.
3/ The historical and contemporary examples of how architecture works (schools, apprenticeship, work, competitions) is very interesting, and useful to compare with technical fields where design is particularly important but less recognized (e.g., computer science). The discussion about how competitions affect theory and craft, ideals and practice, is also relevant across fields.
4/ The chapters A1. Idea, A2. Setting, B1. Plan, C1. Style, and C2. Past were all excellent. I see strong similarities between the various domains of application of design thinking based on these concepts.
5/ High quality, polished writing, from which I can learn some. For example, the introduction and conclusion produce a strong impression, in contrast to the slow-paced and self-effacing wording.
I did not like as much:
1/ The formatting of headers, figures, etc. makes them difficult to access. The sub-sections are not numbered, but the concepts refer to each other, so working back to the other concept is quite difficult. Some of the detailed discussions about specific examples were not obviously linked to the figure depicting the architecture under study, so that part of the discussion becomes quickly inaccessible to the reader.
2/ The discussion about B2. Structure and B3. Skin was quite technical and, for me, not comprehensive enough. A3. Site was also less than really interesting, and could have been tucked under A2. Setting.
3/ Somewhat unclear overlaps, inckuding between the entire chapters C1. Style and C3. Taste, and about the concept of history/revivals (which appears in several chapters, with rather repetitive treatment).
I liked most:
1/ The framework, which consists of three classes: A. Fundamentals, B. Craft, and C. Meta-architecture (discussion about architectural style, etc.) and, within them, ten (slightly overlapping) 'essential topics': A1. Idea, A2. Setting, A3. Site, B1. Plan, B2. Structure, B3. Skin, B4. Details, C1. (cultural) Style, C2. Past, and C3. (personal) Taste.
2/ The density of useful concepts and excellent examples. In particular, I found the concepts quite universal for any field with lasting (vs. throwaway) designs. I took notes on one-third of the pages I read.
3/ The historical and contemporary examples of how architecture works (schools, apprenticeship, work, competitions) is very interesting, and useful to compare with technical fields where design is particularly important but less recognized (e.g., computer science). The discussion about how competitions affect theory and craft, ideals and practice, is also relevant across fields.
4/ The chapters A1. Idea, A2. Setting, B1. Plan, C1. Style, and C2. Past were all excellent. I see strong similarities between the various domains of application of design thinking based on these concepts.
5/ High quality, polished writing, from which I can learn some. For example, the introduction and conclusion produce a strong impression, in contrast to the slow-paced and self-effacing wording.
I did not like as much:
1/ The formatting of headers, figures, etc. makes them difficult to access. The sub-sections are not numbered, but the concepts refer to each other, so working back to the other concept is quite difficult. Some of the detailed discussions about specific examples were not obviously linked to the figure depicting the architecture under study, so that part of the discussion becomes quickly inaccessible to the reader.
2/ The discussion about B2. Structure and B3. Skin was quite technical and, for me, not comprehensive enough. A3. Site was also less than really interesting, and could have been tucked under A2. Setting.
3/ Somewhat unclear overlaps, inckuding between the entire chapters C1. Style and C3. Taste, and about the concept of history/revivals (which appears in several chapters, with rather repetitive treatment).
December 13, 2013
rybczynski has an amazing ability to explain very complex ideas in easily understood prose and examples. in this 2013 title, one of many many on architecture and aimed i think to the novice and potential self-explorer, he breaks down buildings and architecture in to: The setting -- Site -- Plan -- Structure -- Skin -- Details -- Style -- The past -- Taste. his main thesis is that there are only two traditions in western arch.: classic and gothic, all others, like modern and post-modern were just stabs at something singular and not long-lasting. but warning, the contents and examples are idiosyncratic to rybczynski, so he trumpets adajaye and new african amer muesuem in wash dc, he glosses cardinal and his amazing national american indian museum at same location. anyway , though now i cannot recall ALL his main players he uses as examples" geary,, corbusier, wright, ummm east anglica art building, seagrams building, stern , venturi, bauhaus, whitney museum, moma, dallas moma, Seattle, adajaye, the two museums facing each other in golden gate park, ummmm , the re-do of carnegie museum in nyc, lots of buildings on u of penn campus, neat example of campus gothic at princton, oh, lots and lots of exs.
has very nice pictures, and author illustrated glossary, and an interesting bibliography, a mix of essay and just cites.
and the very worst index i have ever seen. cites specific buildings with illustrations that don;t even exist (in the book) and cites instances of discussion of topics that DON'T exist in text. wtf?
i blame fsg for going corporate. hah
has very nice pictures, and author illustrated glossary, and an interesting bibliography, a mix of essay and just cites.
and the very worst index i have ever seen. cites specific buildings with illustrations that don;t even exist (in the book) and cites instances of discussion of topics that DON'T exist in text. wtf?
i blame fsg for going corporate. hah
Read
October 16, 2019I did not finish reading this book for several reasons.
Firstly, as a non-architect and as someone who is an amateur at appreciating its finer details, the word 'humanist' clearly meant something very different to me, leading me to have incorrect expectations for this book. As someone who is going into social work and urban planning, I was hoping for an approach at architecture that explored the cross-section of humans and the spaces they inhabit.
Secondly, I had the worst time imagining what Rybczynski was describing. I needed more pictures and I needed them in color. My imagination simply could not create adequate reproductions of what he was trying to describe. That was frustrating.
Otherwise, this was an interesting book that did provide me with new information for the 100 odd pages I did read. For that, I am glad I read it.
Firstly, as a non-architect and as someone who is an amateur at appreciating its finer details, the word 'humanist' clearly meant something very different to me, leading me to have incorrect expectations for this book. As someone who is going into social work and urban planning, I was hoping for an approach at architecture that explored the cross-section of humans and the spaces they inhabit.
Secondly, I had the worst time imagining what Rybczynski was describing. I needed more pictures and I needed them in color. My imagination simply could not create adequate reproductions of what he was trying to describe. That was frustrating.
Otherwise, this was an interesting book that did provide me with new information for the 100 odd pages I did read. For that, I am glad I read it.
September 3, 2016
If you don't have a background in architecture or art history, make sure you have the internet handy when you read this book. Rybczynski frequently references architects and buildings in this book, but doesn't always include background on who/what/why. The book helps to give some insight on architectural choices in some very notable buildings, and it does force you to think just a little bit differently about buildings. I enjoyed his discussion of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as several of the other museums on the Mall.
November 17, 2014
2 1/2 stars. This book REALLY needed color photos. As a non-architect person I found it a bit difficult to envision the author's descriptions of several of the architectural pieces he discusses and the small b&w photos really didn't help much. I also wasn't too keen on his organization of presentation here. Just seem kind of jostled and hard to follow by someone not familiar with several of the architects discussed. Perhaps someone more involved or familiar with this field of art would enjoy or benefit more from this read.
April 28, 2014
This isn't the first book to point out elements needed for architecture to be successful. It also isn't the first book to make a to ten list. The success of this book is the authors ability to take complex esoteric ideas and relate them in a pedestrian way.
He communicates in a mild mannered prose that isn't dumbed down. It is intelligent and useful, but conveyed so that the reader is compelled to think and understand the concepts easily and practically.
He communicates in a mild mannered prose that isn't dumbed down. It is intelligent and useful, but conveyed so that the reader is compelled to think and understand the concepts easily and practically.
June 9, 2017
This is a useful discussion of the elements in architectural design. It is aimed at the layperson and is easy to understand. There is a glossary, but I rarely had to refer to it because the author explains most of the technical terms within the main text.
I especially appreciated Rybczynski’s explanations of how different architects approach projects.
I especially appreciated Rybczynski’s explanations of how different architects approach projects.
March 14, 2016
Really well-written and thorough overview on the current state of architecture, with a broad historical perspective. Covers elements of history, method, and features of buildings (both functional and aesthetic) with good use of frequent examples. Could have used *slightly* more definition of terms, but it's not the end of the world to have to google something.
January 2, 2014
A fascinating breakdown of how architects think about architecture. This will not only change the way you look at architecture, but it also gave me some much needed perspective on how to look at the visual design of the web. Generally I was just very inspired and fascinated by this book.
July 19, 2016
A great primer on architecture for the uninitiated. Rybczynski throws you into the fire, and I made good use of his provided glossary and the Internet while reading this whirlwind introduction to a field I've been crushing on recently.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews