I had read the author's Looking Around many years ago, so was attracted to this title. Because I'm a layperson on the topic of architecture, I appreciated his approach: breaking down in several steps how architecture works from the beginnings of the plan to the structure to how details are included.

Many examples of architecture are included -- both public buildings and private homes. I liked how some newer works were discussed, such as the judging process for the design of the new Museum of African-American History in Washington, DC (which I've seen -- only from the outside as of this writing -- and it's amazing).

And, adding to my interest is that Rybcznski is somewhat of a local guy himself, being at University of Pennsylvania, so some of the works he refers to are in some ways familiar to me.

A good addition to the architecture section of my library. ( )

With its retro cover design, slightly ponderous professorial tone, and the startling use of the word "humanist" in the subtitle, it's hard to tell whether this book is a sophisticated and ironic self-parody or a passive-aggressive conservative attack on the last sixty or seventy years of academic thought in the humanities. Probably something in between the two. Anyway, it's ostensibly an attempt to demonstrate that anyone can build an intellectual structure for the critical analysis of architecture just using the basic tools they already have lying around in their own sheds, with no need to invoke any philosophers or theoreticians at all. DIY for the brain!

Rybczynski looks at a series of key topics to break down the problems architects have to tackle into manageable chunks: the "idea" of the building, its relation to its neighbours, the topography of the site, the building's plan, structure, skin, and detailing, with plenty of reference to examples in each case. And once he's lulled us into a sense of comfortable humanist security with those, he nudges us on into the trickier areas of "style" and "taste". Ideologically suspect it may be, but Rybczynski obviously knows his stuff, and his comments on the choices the architects have made in each case are clear and perceptive.

One thing that particularly struck me is that the book deals only with "Western canon" architecture: high-profile buildings (museums, concert halls, corporate headquarters) designed by people we've read about in the Sunday papers. I would have expected Rybczynski to discuss the reasoning for that - even in literature, the idea of a canon is something that is contentious and can't be taken for granted, and I have to wonder how far it makes sense to talk about individual "authorship" at all in a discipline as complex as the design and construction of large buildings. But he seems to take the Great Men/Great Buildings thing for granted. He does make a few little digs at the more absurd manifestations of the vanity of the great and famous, but never for a moment questions the notion that architecture should be defined by the works of an elite within the profession.

So, definitely useful and interesting, but perhaps a bit limited. Obviously I'm not going to be able to get away with reading just one book about the subject... ( )

I'm an architect and I love the straight forward explanation. Too often architects are obtuse! ( )

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. ( )

http://archidose.blogspot.com/2013/10/book-review-how-architecture-works.html ( )