ABSTRACT
This chapter presents autobiography of Joseph Rykwert. Rykwert 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. Born in Warsaw in 1926, Joseph Rykwert is one of the best-known critics and historians of architecture. He addresses the dualities between which he had to navigate: Jewish/Polish, Polish/British and later Practice/Scholarship. He moved from squalid Chelsea to a rather agreeable room in Blomfield Street, in Little Venice. Much of his time there was working through contributors' typescripts and proofs. He edited a detailed article on 'pig' and another, equally detailed, on 'Sweden, history of' almost at the same time. Sometimes an article had to be filled in where there was a title but no entry, so he found himself writing 'beards and wigs'.
