Remembering Joseph

A number of Joseph Rykwert's friends, colleagues and ex-students will gather in his honour to discuss the living legacy of his work at the AA on 17th October, the first anniversary of his death.

Joseph Rykwert CBE was an architect, a teacher and a writer. He established the first post-graduate course in Architectural History and Theory in Britain at The University of Essex in 1967. He subsequently taught at both the universities of Cambridge and Pennsylvania and was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 2014. Joseph was responsible for introducing art history, anthropology, archaeology, phenomenology and psychology into the education of generations of students and architects, many of whom have gone on to become significant teachers, writers and designers. He believed that theory was a form of culturally situated civic praxis, and that architectural praxis, in its profound meaning as the embodiment of collective consciousness, was the expression of a theory of culture itself - a double metaphor, body and world.

The event coincides with the launch of the second edition of ​Remembering Places: A Memoir​ (2025) and copies of the new publication will be available to purchase.

SCHEDULE

10am - Introduction by Ingrid Schroder

10.10am - Yonggao Shi: On the Rykwert Research Fellowship

Session 1: Theory as Praxis, chaired by Ingrid Schroder
10.15am - Dawn Ades and Valerie Fraser: On Essex
10.45am - David Leatherbarrow: On theory and practice
11.15am - Robert Tavernor: On Alberti
11.45am - Eric Parry: On teaching and writing
12.15pm - Phyllis Lambert and Martien de Vletter on Joseph Rykwert’s archive at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)

12.30-1pm - Roundtable with Javier Castanon, Homa Farjadi, Kenneth Frampton and Frosso Pimenides

1.15-2.15pm - Break

Session 2: Praxis as Theory, chaired by Francesca Romana Dell’Aglio
2.15pm - Patrick Lynch: On practice as belief
2.45pm - Pippo Ciorra: On writing as practice
3.15pm - Franco la Cecla: On Ivan Illich
3.45pm - Liza Fior: On the urban everyday

4.15-4.45pm - Break

4.45-5.15pm - Roundtable with Jamie Fobert, Carolyn Steel and Richard Wentworth

6-7.30pm - Drinks reception and book launch of the revised and expanded edition of Remembering Places with Reinier de Graaf, David Leatherbarrow and Ellis Woodman.

The book launch is kindly supported by Routledge.

Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email

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