The Most Beautiful House in the World by Witold Rybczynski

Ever since I read Home: a Short History of an Idea, I have wanted to read another book by Witold Rybczynski, and now I have. I mentioned (well, not in so many words) in my former post that Rybczynski never met a rabbit trail he didn't like, and he proceeds along on (and off) the same path in The Most Beautiful House in the World. I was happy to see this because the digressions are one of the main charms of the books.

In the newer book, however, he doesn't only follow rabbit trails in his narrative, but in his life. After a while, I couldn't help thinking about the children's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. One thing leads to another, and eventually Rybczynski reaches a totally unexpected end.

The one thing was his idea that he would like to build a boat. This wasn't as unrealistic an idea as it would be for me--I daydream about learning how to build stuff--because he was experienced with construction and the tools he would have to use, and being an architect, he would be able to come up with a plan. But there was one problem--he needed a place to build the boat. He needed a boatbuilding shed. And then, of course, he needed a piece of land to put the shed on.

It was a five year journey from the day Rybczynski first made sketches for a boatbuilding shed in September, 1975, until the day that he and his wife, Shirley, moved into their Most Beautiful House. In the acknowledgments at the end of the book, Rybczynski says:

I told the story of my house to a fellow visitor (at Tianjin University), a Belgian engineer. "You must write about this," he said . . . I thought that this would be an easy book to write, or at least a straightforward one. Instead it has take many unexpected twists and turns . . .

The book was published three years later.

As we join Rybczynski in navigating all those twists and turns, we learn many things. First, we learn about feng-shui, and ask the question, "What is architecture?" Then, we learn the history of construction toys--latecomers to the toy game, we also learn about pre-construction toy toys--from building with playing cards to the first building blocks introduced by Friedrich Froebel in 1837 as part of his method of education to Meccano to the ubiquitous Lego. Rybczynski describes architecture as the building game. It's not a game you play with others, but more like a word puzzle, something that you do alone in quiet times, when you draw plans, make models, and dream about what you will do next.

Along the way we learn about why a building has to fit into it's environment, what happens when it doesn't. We find out a lot about barns and their history--there's a reason for the barn discussion. And when the building project is finally reaching its end, Rybczynski tells the story of a man who built his own house from almost nothing in a poor area of Mexico, and also about five well-known men who built their own houses: Samuel Clemens, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Bernard Shaw, and my favorite, Carl Larsson. You have probably seen pictures of Larsson's home and family on calendars and Christmas cards.

The Most Beautiful House in the World was just the kind of book that I expected from Rybczynski. It underscores something that I have really learned while reading all these diverse books. A good author can make almost any subject interesting if he loves what he is writing about. This book is a good example of that concept. It's also a great book to read when you are looking for something that is enjoyable and not terribly demanding--a book to relax with.

AMDG