In the Yesterday Today lecture series, Canadian architect and author Witold Rybczynski discusses the roots of Ecol House, a prototype for an autonomous dwelling for use in developing countries. The project was created in Montréal in 1972 by Ecol Operation, a group of architects and students of which he was a member that became an international point of reference for energy conservation and experimental construction techniques in the early 1970s.

Renowned for his work on minimum cost housing, Witold Rybczynski is the author of more than fifty articles and texts on the subject of housing, architecture, and technology, including the books Home: A Short History of an Idea, The Most Beautiful House in the World, City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World, and The Look of Architecture. He holds Bachelor and Master of Architecture degrees from McGill University and is the Martin and Margy Myerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yesterday Today is a lecture series investigating architectural ideas of the 1970s and today in light of environmental concerns. It is presented in conjunction with the CCA exhibition 1973: Sorry, Out of Gas (2007), which includes work by Ecol Operation.

The lecture is introduced by Giovanna Borasi, CCA Curator of Contemporary Architecture.