"Palladio is the Bible," Thomas Jefferson once said. "You should get it and stick to it." With his simple, gracious, perfectly proportioned villas, Andrea Palladio elevated the architecture of the private house into an art form during the late sixteenth century -- and his influence is still evident in the ample porches, columned porticoes, grand ceilings, and front-door pediments of America today.
In The Perfect House, bestselling author Witold Rybczynski, whose previous books have transformed our understanding of domestic architecture, reveals how a handful of Palladio's houses in an obscure corner of the Venetian Republic should have made their presence felt hundreds of years later and halfway across the globe. More than just a study of one of history's seminal architectural figures, The Perfect House reflects Rybczynski's enormous admiration for his subject and provides a new way of looking at the special landscapes we call "home" in the modern world.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
the (almost) perfect book Prof. Rybczynski does it again - elegant prose makes a stylish match with its subject, excellent drawings by the author illustrate and clarify architectural concepts, biographical details enliven the text with elements of human interest. This book presents residential architecture of Palladio, but also it presents Palladio the man, a person with family life, career, accomplishments and setbacks. It does great credit to the author that he does not try to develop this personal area beyond known facts, even if... more info
Read, Not Seen I'm sure anything I say about the scholarship of Witold Rybczynski's `The Perfect House' would be superfluous. Mr. Rybczynski has written several books (most of which I've also had the privilege to read) on the history, techniques, and important personages of the architectural trade; he holds a professorship at Penn; he clearly loves his subject matter. I therefore really can't quibble with the fundamental material here; the book is literally stuffed with facts. I did, however, have difficulties with the... more info
Rybczynski phoned this one in... This is a surprisingly lazy effort for Rybczynski, whose other writing on architecture I've found to be quite good, even exceptional. "The Perfect House" is a travelogue and collection of notes on the work of the 16th century Veneto architect Andrea Palladio, with a handful of sketches and photos sprinkled in to illustrate the works discussed. While Rybczynski does get an important point right -- that Palladio's work ought to be experienced first hand to be properly appreciated -- his pedestrian... more info
Utterly engaging Rybczynski has written a book that is part social history, part art history, and part travelogue, as he describes his journey through Northern Italy visiting and discovering the remaining country villas created by the great architect Andrea Palladio.
Rybczynski manages to write about the "art" side of the architecture in a way that is both scholarly and accessible; however, the best feature of this book, from my perspective, is the insight he brings to architecture and the role of the architect in... more info
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