The Most Beautiful House In the World
Jul. 5th, 2012 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliThe Most Beautiful House In the World by Witold Rybczynski
This book starts with his ambition to build a boat, and toward that end, build a shed in which he can build it. It goes on from there, and uses the story as a framework too.
So we find out what happens in the end to what he started, with excursions into the art of architecture, what architects actually do, the famous names in architectural history.
Vernacular architecture, the art of buildings that fit their environments and account for their settings. In northern India, the English would build English cottages, complete with rose gardens, because the climate would allow. Momentumental buildings in southern India posed a challenge.
The reasons why barns and cathedrals resemble each other.
Feng-shui and how the British went about dissipating it in Hong Kong by planting trees, having windy roads, and building pools.
The rituals that surround the building of buildings.
Interesting book. Light reading at that.
This book starts with his ambition to build a boat, and toward that end, build a shed in which he can build it. It goes on from there, and uses the story as a framework too.
So we find out what happens in the end to what he started, with excursions into the art of architecture, what architects actually do, the famous names in architectural history.
Vernacular architecture, the art of buildings that fit their environments and account for their settings. In northern India, the English would build English cottages, complete with rose gardens, because the climate would allow. Momentumental buildings in southern India posed a challenge.
The reasons why barns and cathedrals resemble each other.
Feng-shui and how the British went about dissipating it in Hong Kong by planting trees, having windy roads, and building pools.
The rituals that surround the building of buildings.
Interesting book. Light reading at that.