At the UIA World Congress last week (03-07 August), Joseph Rykwert was awarded the Jean Tschumi Prize for his work in architectural criticism and teaching over the past six decades.

The prize adds to a great year for Josep Rykwert in which he received the RIBA Gold Medal and was awarded a CBE by the English Queen. Created in 1961, the UIA Prizes honour professionals whose qualities, talents, and actions have had an international impact on the diverse sectors of architectural practice.

Joseph Rykwert new Jean Tschumi Prize 2014.

Joseph Rykwert is the winner of the Jean Tschumi Prize, awarded for architectural teaching, criticism and history, which have contributed to excellence in architectural education.

“Eminent English architect, historian and critic Joseph Rykwert is one of the most influential theoreticians of his generation. For more than sixty years, his erudition and his innovative scholarship have radically changed the relationship that architects have with the past, their conception of space and their perceptions of buildings and cities.”

A Mention has been attributed to internationally renowned Australian couple team of editors and architecture critics, Haig Beck & Jackie Cooper.

The Emergency Architects Foundation & (Spain) awarded for Vassilis Sgoutas Prize 2014.

The Emergency Architects Foundation and Architects Without Borders (Spain) awarded for architecture serving the most impoverished and for the conception of inventive solutions for reducing poverty and indigence.

“By bringing a humanitarian dimension to the practice of architecture, Fondation Architectes de l’Urgence and Arquitectos sin Fronteras (Spain) have opened the door for collective, innovative and exemplary actions in the service of disaster-stricken populations  or in areas of extreme poverty.”

Four mentions have been attributed:

- To Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi for his school prototype on waterfronts in African Cities.

- To the Norweigian team, TYIN Tegnestue Architects, composed of Yashar Hanstad and Andreas Grøntvedt Gjertsen, who define themselves as - “Architects of necessity”.

- To South African architect Carin Smuts, who designs sustainable structures for marginalized township communities.

- To Australian architect Anna Rubbo, founder of Global Studio (2005), for her educational and humanitarian work.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government received the Sir Robert Matthew Prize 2014, awarded for the amelioration of habitats and public spaces in the interest of harmonious and cooperative development.

“The Seoul Metropolitan Government has conducted an exemplary pilot programme to renovate the Yeongdeungpo Dosshouse Town. Cooperation between the city government, architects and the inhabitants of the dosshouses paved the way for efficient implementation of the project and have succeeded in bringing hope, dignity and joy into the neighbourhood.”

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Joseph Rykwert (Warsaw, Poland, April 5, 1926 - London, UK, October 18, 2024) was a prominent architectural historian, and author of numerous books on the subject. Son of Elizabeth Melup and Szymon Rykwert, he was born in Warsaw in 1926 and moved to England in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War. Rykwert was educated at Charter House School, the Bartlett School of Architecture (University College London), and the Architectural Association in London.

He initially taught at the Hammersmith School of Arts & Crafts and later at the Ulm School of Design from 1958, later becoming a librarian and tutor at the Royal College of Art from 1961 to 1967, where he obtained his PhD. He was a Professor of Art at the University of Essex, a post he held from 1967 to 1980 when he moved to Cambridge to serve initially as Slade Professor of Fine Art and then as Professor of Architecture. Here Rykwert continued his influential master's program, taught by architecture critic Dalibor Vesely. In 1988 Rykwert was appointed Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, a position he held until 1998; he was professor emeritus. He was also a visiting professor at prestigious universities and taught, throughout his career, a whole generation of historians and architectural theorists.

Some of his best-known publications are:: The Judicious Eye: Architecture Against the Other Arts (2008); The Seduction of Place: The City in the Twenty-First Century (2004); Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture edited by George Dodds and Robert Tavernor (2002); The Dancing Column: On Order in Architecture (1998); Leon Battista Alberti’s On the Art of Building in Ten Books translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach and Robert Tavernor (1991), The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy, and The Ancient World (1988) y On Adam’s House in Paradise The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History (1981).

In 2000, he received the Bruno Zevi Prize for the history of architecture at the Venice Biennale and, in 2009, the Gold Medal of the Fine Arts of Madrid. He was president of the International Council of Architectural Critics (CICA) since 1996 and was awarded the Royal Gold Medal in 2014. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to architecture. In May 2016, he received an honorary degree in pedagogy from the University of Bologna.

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Published on: August 12, 2014
Cite: "Joseph Rykwert and "Architects Without Borders" awarded at UIA 2014" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/joseph-rykwert-and-architects-without-borders-awarded-uia-2014> ISSN 1139-6415
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