Author and architect Witold Rybczynski, the second speaker of the University of Southern Mississippi's University Forum Series, said it's questions like these that spur him to write. He writes, he said, to discover truths. The books, in a sense, are byproducts of the process of answering his own questions.
American attitudes shape American cities.
An admirer of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, Rybczynski was surprised to learn that Olmstead didn't begin his architectural career until his late 30s. Rather, he spent the early years experimenting in many areas, including journalism. Satisfying his curiosity produced A Clearing in the Distance, a biography of Olmstead that is very much a biography of the nation as it shifted from a rural population to an urban, industrialized people. The premise behind that question is also integral to another book, Home, which has been translated into eight languages and was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Prize. In Home, Rybczynski explores how and why people create for themselves the places in which they live.