“Surely the time cannot be far distant when we shall understand how inadequate is the death-mask of an ancient culture to express the heroic soul of America,” sniffed Joseph Hudnut, dean of Harvard’s design school.

In characteristic contrast, critic Witold Rybczynski declares the building “magnificent” in his latest book, “How Architecture Works.”

The question of modern vs. traditional has driven architectural debate for decades, and the sides, to oversimplify broadly, often break down into architects and everyone else. (Seen a subdivision of Modernist homes lately?)

Despite his credentials as both an architect and an academic — he is an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania — Rybczynski is ecumenical, and in “How Architecture Works,” a layman’s guide to the field, he offers praise for buildings and designers of both camps. The book’s chief pleasure may be that Rybczynski, ever the engaging and thoughtful writer, offers a wide-ranging tour of the glories and curiosities, old and new, in the field.

There are detours into historic design, such as domes — the one on the Pantheon, Brunelleschi’s on Florence’s cathedral, Christopher Wren’s on St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the one on the U.S. Capitol dome. But most of the book concerns itself with designs of the last 100 years and works by some of the field’s best-known practitioners. Buildings pop up by Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster and Renzo Piano, among many others.