Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski, FAIA, Hon. ASLA, studied architecture at McGill University in Montreal, where he also taught; he is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. His architectural experience has included designing and building houses as a registered architect, as well as researching low-cost housing, for which he received a 1991 Progressive Architecture award. In 1993, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and he has received honorary doctorates from McGill University and the University of Western Ontario. In 2007, he received the Vincent Scully Prize, the Seaside Prize, and the Institute Collaborative Honors from the AIA. He served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. He was architecture critic for the online magazine Slate. He has written twelve books on subjects as varied as the evolution of comfort, a history of the weekend, American urbanism, and the search for the origins of the screwdriver. His biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize, a Christopher Award, and a Philadelphia Athenæum literary award. His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books and the New York Times, and he has written for the New Yorker and the Atlantic.