ABSTRACT
This chapter presents autobiography of Joseph Rykwert and explores 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 USA 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. With all its visual splendours, Cambridge was really blissful after the dull Victorian Gothic grind of school. No rules, no prefects. The idea of being mobilized into the Polish Army became, as peace approached, alarming to me on two rather different counts: there were the inevitable rumours of occasional Jew-baiting and guns being turned on Jewish soldiers by their fellows, but equally frightening was the prospect of being incorporated into Polish units that would be 'sent back' to their new Soviet masters.
