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A Clearing In The Distance

A Clearing In The Distance PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439125104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Home and City Life, illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes -- among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure.

A Clearing In The Distance

A Clearing In The Distance PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439125104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Home and City Life, illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes -- among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure.

Genius of Place

Genius of Place PDF Author: Justin Martin
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306818817
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Book Description
This definitive, first full-scale biography of Olmsted--famed designer of New York's Central Park--reveals him also as a brilliant political and social reformer.

Makeshift Metropolis

Makeshift Metropolis PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9781416561293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In this new work, prizewinning author, professor, and Slate architecture critic Witold Rybczynski returns to the territory he knows best: writing about the way people live, just as he did in the acclaimed bestsellers Home and A Clearing in the Distance. In Makeshift Metropolis, Rybczynski has drawn upon a lifetime of observing cities to craft a concise and insightful book that is at once an intellectual history and a masterful critique. Makeshift Metropolis describes how current ideas about urban planning evolved from the movements that defined the twentieth century, such as City Beautiful, the Garden City, and the seminal ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright and Jane Jacobs. If the twentieth century was the age of planning, we now find ourselves in the age of the market, Rybczynski argues, where entrepreneurial developers are shaping the twenty-first-century city with mixed-use developments, downtown living, heterogeneity, density, and liveliness. He introduces readers to projects like Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Yards in Washington, D.C., and, further afield, to the new city of Modi’in, Israel—sites that, in this age of resource scarcity, economic turmoil, and changing human demands, challenge our notion of the city. Erudite and immensely engaging, Makeshift Metropolis is an affirmation of Rybczynski’s role as one of our most original thinkers on the way we live today.

City Life

City Life PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476737347
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In City Life, Witold Rybczynski, bestselling author of Now I Sit Me Down, looks at what we want from cities, how they have evolved, and what accounts for their unique identities. In this vivid description of everything from the early colonial settlements to the advent of the skyscraper to the changes wrought by the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, and telecommuting, Rybczynski reveals how our urban spaces have been shaped by the landscapes and lifestyles of the New World.

The Clearing

The Clearing PDF Author: Philip White
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
ISBN: 9780896726055
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Book Description
"Focusing on transformations of love and self over time and in bereavement. White's subjects are autobiographical--love, marriage, the deaths of his father, mother, and, more centrally, his first wife. Questioning memory and self-deception, the poems employ language and metaphors drawn from ordinary life. Winner, Walt McDonald First-Book Competition 2007"--Provided by publisher.

One Good Turn

One Good Turn PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684867303
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.

Now I Sit Me Down

Now I Sit Me Down PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374713359
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere? In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He reveals the history of chairs to be a social history--of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America--the Barcalounger--traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs--they're all here. The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.

How Architecture Works

How Architecture Works PDF Author: Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374211744
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Explores "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, [the author] 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"--Dust jacket flap.

Clearing

Clearing PDF Author: Jim PathFinder Ewing
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1844093034
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
Working from the premise that every natural and human-made space has an energy of its own that can physically and emotionally effect anyone in that space, this introduction to ancient practices of environmental shamanism--or transformation of the energy of spaces--explains in practical terms how to liberate old, unproductive energy that may be stored in any space, making room for new vibrations to circulate and increase inhabitants' well-being. Combining timeless traditions with the author's vast experience in energy transformation, this manual offers step-by-step guidance for recognizing and manipulating the unseen forces that affect everyday life. Real-life examples, guided exercises, annotated endnotes, and an extensive glossary to supplement case studies making the book both informative and accessible for practical use.

Frederick Law Olmsted: Writings on Landscape, Culture, and Society

Frederick Law Olmsted: Writings on Landscape, Culture, and Society PDF Author: Frederick Law Olmsted
Publisher: Library of America
ISBN: 1598534602
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 822

Book Description
The biggest and best single-volume collection ever published of the fascinating and wide-ranging writings of a vitally important nineteenth century cultural figure whose work continues to shape our world today. Seaman, farmer, abolitionist, journalist, administrator, reformer, conservationist, and without question America’s foremost landscape architect and urban planner, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) was a man of unusually diverse talents and interests, and the arc of his life and writings traces the most significant developments of nineteenth century American history. As this volume reveals, the wide-ranging endeavors Olmsted was involved in—cofounding The Nation magazine, advocating against slavery, serving as executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission (precursor to the Red Cross) during the Civil War, championing the preservation of America’s great wild places at Yosemite and Yellowstone—emerged from his steadfast commitment to what he called “communitiveness,” the impulse to serve the needs of one’s fellow citizens. This philosophy had its ultimate expression is his brilliant designs for some of the country’s most beloved public spaces: New York’s Central Park, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Boston’s “Emerald Necklace,” the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, garden suburbs like Chicago’s Riverside, parkways (a term he invented) and college campuses, the “White City” of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and many others. Gathering almost 100 original letters, newspaper dispatches, travel sketches, essays, editorials, design proposals, official reports, reflections on aesthetics, and autobiographical reminiscences, this deluxe Library of America volume is profusely illustrated with a 32-page color portfolio of Olmsted’s design sketches, architectural plans, and contemporary photographs. It also includes detailed explanatory notes and a chronology of Olmsted’s life and design projects. From the Hardcover edition.