Book
My Two Polish Grandfathers: And Other Essays on the Imaginative Life written by Witold Rybczynski
About the book
Witold Rybczynski's parents and grandparents were a thriving, cultured family in prewar Warsaw, then a sophisticated European city. With the onset of war, their world fell apart. His mother and father made separate escapes, reuniting against many odds on a ship bound for Scotland from Marseilles.
That people can lose everything, overcome stunning odds to survive, remake themselves in a foreign country, learn a new language and culture, and then do it again is extraordinary. My Two Polish Grandfathers is a testament to the boundaryless world of art, architecture, and music -- which can be transported from one country to another -- and clear affirmation of Rybczynski's own path toward becoming an architect and one of today's most original thinkers.
Beautifully written, thoughtful, and extraordinarily subtle, this riveting work offers a rare glimpse into the development of Rybczynski's educated outsider's eye and is a tribute to a European generation that has helped to define postwar American culture.
- Hardcover
- 228 pages
- Published February 2009
About the author
Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture for The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and Slate, and is the author of the critically acclaimed book Home and the award-winning A Clearing in the Distance. He is the recipient of the National Building Museum's 2007 Vincent Scully Prize. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia, PA where he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. |
