Joseph Rykwert: Awarded 2014 RIBA Royal Gold Medal
Sep 18, 2013
by
Oliver Wainwright
'Gloriously erudite and ingeniously speculative' … historian Joseph Rykwert is the recipient of the 2014 RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
Critics don't often get rewarded by the professions they serve, but today the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced it will bestow its highest honour on one of its longest-serving judges, declaring 87-year-old historian and theorist Joseph Rykwert as the recipient of the 2014 Royal Gold Medal.
It is a prize that usually goes to practicing architects: when he receives the gong from the Queen in February next year, Rykwert will join only a small handful of writers since the award began in 1848, including most recently Nikolaus Pevsner (1967), John Summerson (1976) and Colin Rowe (1995).