Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture

Rating:
Summary: A guided tour with a view
Review: Here is an unusual book: Witold Rybczynski takes us wandering through the professional byways of a subject usually reserved for a more intellectual readership, if such a thing exists. Why architecture is important and what makes it so is the subject matter here, brought to us by a very competent writer. Delightfully so, in fact, as Rybczynski has the storyteller's ability to weft and weave.

The stories he has chosen here are a mixed bunch and we are asked to think about such diverse constructions as the American bungalow, the Grow Home and public buildings like the Canadian Centre for Architecture. He has stories to tell about all of them, the people who live in or use them and the odd trends which are sometimes responsible for a particular design. As he points out, although we use architecture every day of our lives and are clearly affected by it (whether we know it or not), we are more than prone to take it for granted. Should we not be more aware of what's around us, in general? This book offers up some thoughtful ideas on the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Good reading
Review: This is an easy reader.

I bought this book a long time ago, but never had the time to open it, then one day I was looking for a magazine to read in, you know, those intimate moments, and in the rush I grabed 'looking around'.

Fact is: I couldn't stop reading it. Even tough I am not what you'd call a lay-man on architectural issues, Witold's book really made me see that's possible to write about architecture without being too academic or technical. I can say that I've learned a great deal, not only about architecture, but about life.

my advice? buy it now!

Rating:
Summary: This is an incredible book
Review: This is an incredible book and I recommend it to anyone, whatever field you are in, you live in this world and may as well enjoy it.