The Most Beautiful House in the World is a book published in 1989 by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski. [1] [2]
The Most Beautiful House in the World recounts Rybczynski's experience building a house for himself and his wife. As he describes the long process of designing and constructing the house (essentially alone), he meanders through various related topics, eventually coming to the point where he can answer the question hidden in the title of the book: "What is the most beautiful house in the world?"
Christopher Wolfgang John Alexander was an Austrian-born British-American architect and design theorist. He was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His theories about the nature of human-centered design have affected fields beyond architecture, including urban design, software, and sociology. Alexander designed and personally built over 100 buildings, both as an architect and a general contractor.
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing architects worldwide through his works and hundreds of apprentices in his Taliesin Fellowship. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture".
Frank Owen GehryFAIA is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, in Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. Random House has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann.
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22-story, 285-foot-tall (86.9 m) steel-framed landmarked building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the eponymous Flatiron District neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinkelberg, and known in its early days as "Burnham's Folly", it was completed in 1902 and originally included 20 floors. The building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd Street—where the building's 87-foot (27 m) back end is located—with East 23rd Street grazing the triangle's northern (uptown) peak. The name "Flatiron" derives from its triangular shape, which recalls that of a cast-iron clothes iron.
Zbigniew Rybczyński is a Polish filmmaker, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, creator of experimental animated films, and multimedia artist who has won numerous prestigious industry awards both in the United States and internationally including the 1982 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Tango.
The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is a government building, museum, and former custom house at 1 Bowling Green, near the southern end of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Designed by Cass Gilbert in the Beaux-Arts style, it was erected from 1902 to 1907 by the government of the United States as a headquarters for the Port of New York's duty collection operations. The building contains the George Gustav Heye Center museum, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, and the New York regional offices of the National Archives. The facade and part of the interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is listed on both the New York State Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, listed on the NRHP.
The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the progressive social reform movement in North America under the leadership of the upper-middle class concerned with poor living conditions in all major cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City and Washington, D.C., promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations.
Noah Raam Feldman is an American legal scholar and academic. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and chairman of the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is the author of 10 books, host of the podcast Deep Background, and a public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was formerly a contributing writer for The New York Times.
Peter Lymburner Robertson was a Canadian inventor, industrialist, salesman, and philanthropist who popularized the square-socket drive for screws, often called the Robertson drive. Although a square-socket drive had been conceived decades before, it had never been developed into a commercial success because the design was difficult to manufacture. Robertson's efficient manufacturing technique using cold forming for the screw's head is what made the idea a commercial success.
Witold Rybczynski is a Canadian American architect, professor and writer. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.
One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw is a book published in 2000 by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski.
Eugene Benton Sperling is an American lawyer who was director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He is the only person to serve as national economic advisor under two presidents. Outside of government, he founded the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in 2002.
The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th Street to the north. The Morgan Library & Museum is composed of several structures. The main building was designed by Charles McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead and White, with an annex designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris. A 19th-century Italianate brownstone house at 231 Madison Avenue, built by Isaac Newton Phelps, is also part of the grounds. The museum and library also contains a glass entrance building designed by Renzo Piano and Beyer Blinder Belle. The main building and its interior is a New York City designated landmark and a National Historic Landmark, while the house at 231 Madison Avenue is a New York City landmark.
Sir David Frank Adjaye is a Ghanaian-British architect. He is known for having designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Adjaye was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He is the recipient of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal, making him the first African recipient and one of the youngest recipients. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2022.
Lawrence Osborne is a British novelist and journalist who is currently residing in Bangkok. Osborne was educated at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and at Harvard University, and has since led a nomadic life, residing for years in Poland, France, Italy, Morocco, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and Istanbul.
The Driehaus Architecture Prize, fully named The Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame, is a global award to honor a major contributor in the field of contemporary traditional and classical architecture. The Driehaus Prize was conceived as an alternative to the predominantly modernist Pritzker Prize.
Mattie Edwards Hewitt was an American photographer of architecture, landscape, and design, primarily based on the East Coast. Initially she was associated with Frances Benjamin Johnston, who later became her lover, living and working with her for eight years from 1909. Together they established the Johnston-Hewitt Studio in New York City, which functioned from 1913 till 1917. They became well known in the field of architectural and landscape photography and took many pictures of famous buildings and gardens, which were titled "Miss Johnston and Mrs. Hewitt" or "Frances Benjamin Johnston and Mattie Edwards Hewitt."