Rybczynski, a Chestnut Hill resident with a worldwide reputation, has written numerous books and more than 300 articles and papers on the subjects of housing, architecture and technology.

by Len Lear

Witold Rybczynski, 73, one of the world’s foremost authorities on architecture, moved to Chestnut Hill in 1993. “We used to live on Rex Avenue, which is a beautiful street,” he told us recently. “We now live in an old stone house that was designed by H. Louis Duhring in 1907. Oddly enough, the house started life as a barn…

“Chestnut Hill is halfway between the suburbs and the city, which gives us access to a lot of stuff: Korean and Russian supermarkets in the former, Osteria and the Penn library in the latter. (On the negative side) we now have a surplus of food markets in the neighborhood but no real butcher. And way too many banks.”

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England, Witold moved at a young age to Canada. He received a Bachelor of Architecture in 1966 and a Master of Architecture in 1972 from McGill University in Montreal.

“Most of my time was taken up with teaching and doing research at McGill,” he explained, “so my practice was really a kind of hobby. My wife Shirley and I also built our own house in rural Quebec. It was a D-I-Y project and resembled a little barn. I wrote about it in ‘The Most Beautiful House in the World.’ I think all architects should build their own homes; practice what you preach.”

Rybczynski has written more than 300 articles and papers on the subjects of housing, architecture and technology, many of which are aimed at a non-technical readership. His work has been published in a wide variety of magazines, including The Wilson Quarterly, Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.

“If you have written for Atlantic and the New Yorker, as I have, you generally assume an educated reader but not necessarily a specialist. That doesn’t mean that my writing is dumbed down, but it does mean that I avoid professional and academic jargon. I learned this lesson from some very good editors. Interestingly, explaining something in clear, simple language is more work than using shorthand terms or buzz words.”

Rybczynski taught at McGill University (1974–1993) and the University of Pennsylvania (1993–2012) and served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 2004 to 2012. Rybczynski's book, “Home: A Short History of an Idea,” was nominated for the 1986 Governor General's Award for non-fiction, and “A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century” won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.

He has won numerous other prizes, but his latest book, which was published in August and featured in the Aug. 29 issue of Time magazine, is “Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair: A Natural History.” It is essentially a history of the attempt by human beings to find the perfect chair.

Where did the idea for this unusual book come from? “I first wrote about furniture in ‘Home,’ a book about the history of domestic comfort. I thought it would be interesting to explore the subject of chairs in more detail. The immediate stimulus was an article I wrote for an architecture magazine about a new chair designed by Tadao Ando, a famous Japanese architect.”

The architect/author points out in the book that human beings are not really built to sit; they were meant to move their muscles. Recent studies have shown that one reason so many Americans are so much overweight is their sedentary lifestyle.

Interestingly, in doing research for the book, Rybczynski visited museums to see what people were sitting on in the paintings. He explained, “I found old paintings of domestic interiors to be an invaluable tool in researching the book since not only do they show how people used chairs and how they sat in them, but they also show chairs in the context of a room’s decor. The 18th and 19th century are probably the best periods for this, but even ancient Egyptian tomb paintings are useful, since they show the kinds of activities that people did while sitting.”

One might think that Rybczynski’s most treasured possession might be something he designed or an award he won, but one would be wrong.

“My father would always tell me that ‘up here’ is what counts, tapping his forehead. World War II uprooted my parents from a comfortable life in Poland and abruptly dropped them into Scotland, where I was born, and later Canada. ‘Up here’ is what kept him going and provided a livelihood; he was an engineer. And, I suppose, it was also a storehouse of memories. I have had a more settled life, but I guess that lesson sank in. Being a writer suits me. You take your office with you wherever you go.”

For more information, visit www.witoldrybczynski.com.