Remembering Places: A Memoir
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:22nd Sep '25
£24.99
This title is due to be published on 22nd September, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Born in Warsaw in 1926, Joseph Rykwert was 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 new posthumous edition of his memoir, he expands upon the first edition by 20,000 words, delving deeper into 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 as a designer, teacher and a writer; as such, his groundbreaking 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.
"This is a story of quiet heroism by a remarkable man. It is one of personal and intellectual adventure, told with wit, charm, wisdom and the best kinds of gossip. It is a vivid portrait of a post-war world, in London, Paris, Rome and New York, in which philosophers and artists could cross paths with film stars and musicians. If there’s another book that brings together Ian Fleming, Susan Sontag, pre-war Warsaw and ancient Etruria in the way that Remembering Places does, I have yet to read it."
Rowan Moore, Architecture Critic, The Observer
"Joseph's readers are brushed by his vast erudition of Talmudic intensity, stung by his wit, sprayed and stamped with his font of gossip (essential to a great raconteur), and enriched by his connections to so many people in so many areas of inquiry. A phenomenalist, unique among the great architect/theorists of our time, Rykwert muses on how his early sensory concern with place, transformed into 'the passionate, carnal – even erotic' concern with the man made environment."
Phyllis Lambert, Founding Director Emeritus, Canadian Centre for Architecture; Recipient of the Golden Lion for life achievement at the XIV Architectural Biennale, Venice
"I loved Joseph Rykwert’s Remembering Places. It was so incredibly informative about the life of a wandering architectural student in the 1950s and writer, historian and teacher thereafter. So, it’s wonderful that he was able to add more thoughts and memories to the original – equally informative, all of it full of his personality and richly interesting."
Charles Saumarez Smith, Former Professor of Architectural History, Royal Academy of Arts, UK
"Remembering Places – the plain, self-effacing title of Rykwert’s memoirs belies the trajectory of a life that is anything but. The exceptional tale of an ‘ordinary twentieth century survivor’."
Reinier de Graaf, Partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture
ISBN: 9781041077275
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
262 pages
2nd edition