LOOKING AROUND: A Journey Through Architecture ...

LOOKING AROUND: A Journey Through Architecture by Witold Rybczynski (Penguin: $11; 301 pp.). Unlike many architecture critics, Rybczynski focuses less on aesthetics than on convenience, comfort and reasonable cost; in these cogent discussions of domestic architecture, he praises the much-maligned postwar suburban bungalow for providing these qualities. Although he lives in Montreal, Rybczynski’s most devastating criticisms seem to have been inspired by the excesses of Southern California real estate: “ . . . in America, the house may be a home, but it is first a consumer product. Hence the preponderance of hyperactive street facades, dazzling hallways with lofty staircases, and sparkling bathrooms, which all help to sell a house but do not necessarily make living in it more convenient or comfortable.”