Joseph Rykwert †
Born in Warsaw, in 1926, Joseph Rykwert was one of the leading architectural historians and critics of his generation. He travelled to the United Kingdom on the eve of Second World War, where he studied at the Bartlett and Architectural Association. England became the center of his professional activities after a brief stage at the Ulm School of Design. He taught at the Royal College of Art, the University of Essex, and at Cambridge University as Slade Professor of Fine Arts and Reader in Architecture. In 1988 he was appointed the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania; he became Emeritus Professor in 1998. He was also a visiting professor at numerous key architecture schools such as Princeton, Harvard, New York University, The Cooper Union, and the Institut d’Urbanisme of Paris, amongst others. He was awarded Honorary Degrees from such universities as Edinburgh, Bath, Rome, Bologna, Trieste and Córdoba in Argentina. He was a Member of the Academia di San Luca. Amongst his many prizes is the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2014, on which occasion he delivered a memorable lecture entitled “Architecture, a Profession or an Art”.
Distinguished and active Member of the International Committee of Architectural Critics, CICA, he served as its President from 2002 to 2023 and was its Honorary President thereafter. In this field, he was recognized not only by his students but by scholars from near and afar. He was the author of many profound books on architecture that were translated into several languages. The Idea of a Town (1963) is an in-depth investigation that brilliantly expounds his knowledge of very diverse subjects and writings, which he interweaves in a lucid and original manner. In particular, he draws on authors such as Tito Livio and Plutarch to indicate and demonstrate the origin of the “good auguries” that form part of the rituals in the founding of Greek and Roman cities. This knowledge and fascination with classical architecture, is explicit in the preface of The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture (1996), where he refers to his desire since youth to become a “modern architect” without forgetting the lessons of the classics. On Adam’s House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History (1972) has become a “timeless” text, retaining its relevance based on the fact that it maintains its distance from strident or fashionable postures. Much more could be said about other publications like The Seduction of Place (2000), On Louis Kahn (2001), Richard Meier Houses (2007), or The Judicious Eye, Architecture Against the Other Arts (2008), that deal with the here and now, and that are in tune with architectural criticism.
An excellent professor, an acclaimed scholar, a respectable leader, a reliable friend, he passed away on 18th October 2024.
We shall miss him deeply.
Louise Noelle Gras, Mexico D.F. 28th October 2024