Remembering Places: A Memoir

Born in Warsaw in 1926, Joseph Rykwert is one of the best-known critics and historians of architecture. One of very few writers to be awarded the RIBA’s highest honour, the Royal Gold Medal, in 2014, and author of countless books and essays, his influence over the past 60 years cannot be underestimated. In this memoir he tells for the first time of how his life’s experiences shaped his working life. He addresses the dualities between which he had to navigate: Jewish/Polish, Polish/British and later, Practice/Scholarship. He spent most of his working life between the US and UK and worked both as a designer and a writer; as such his ground-breaking ideas and work have had a major impact on the thinking of architects and designers since the 1960s and continue to do so to this day.

Joseph Rykwert CBE (born 1926) is Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation. He has spent most of his working life in the UK and US. Rykwert is the author of many influential works on architecture, including The Idea of a Town (1963), On Adam’s House in Paradise (1972), The Dancing Column (1996) and The Seduction of Place (2000). All his books have been translated into several languages.