Witold Rybczynski
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A scholar, author, professor, and architect, Rybczynski has been described as "one of [the] most original, accessible, and stimulating writers on architecture" by Library Journal. An award-winning author, Rybczynski’s diverse publications have explored the evolution of comfort, a history of the weekend, American urbanism, and a search for the origins of the screwdriver, among other subjects. His book Home: A Short History of an Idea has been translated into ten languages, and was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Prize. His biography of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize, a Christopher Award, and a Philadelphia Athenæum literary award, and was shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction. His forthcoming book Last Harvest, explores the subject of American real estate development. His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, and the oped pages of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He has also written for The New Yorker and Time.
In addition to literary accomplishments, Witold Rybczynski’s contributions to the fields of architecture and urban planning have been recognized with numerous awards. In 1993, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He was the recipient of an honorary doctor of science degree from McGill University in 2002, and an honorary doctor of laws from the University of Western Ontario in 2006. In 2005, President George W. Bush appointed Rybczynski to the Commission of Fine Arts, which advises on the design of public buildings, parks, and memorials in Washington, DC. Rybczynski’s research on low-cost housing solutions earned him a Progressive Architecture Design Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1991.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Witold Rybczynski was raised in London and attended Jesuit schools in England and Canada. He studied architecture and later taught at McGill University in Montreal. Today, he lives in the Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia with his wife Shirley Hallam.
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