Ernő Goldfinger

Ernő Goldfinger (born November 11, 1902 in Budapest , † November 15, 1987 in London ) was a Hungarian-British architect and was one of the most important representatives of modern architecture in the United Kingdom . Goldfinger acknowledged the clear forms of his architecture, which were very often rationally oriented.

Life

Training and first architectural work

Goldfinger was born in Budapest. His parents worked in the forestry business. Originally he wanted to be an engineer. He spent the first eight years alternately in Szászrégen in the Carpathian Mountains and in the Austrian Alps and in Istria on the Adriatic Sea. From 1912 to 1919 he attended grammar school in Budapest and switched school first to Vienna and later to Gstaad . His interest in architecture came with the three-volume work on English architecture, The English House, by the German architect Hermann Muthesius , who was a co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund . After the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , he moved to Paris in 1920 . There he studied from 1923 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Léon Jaussely's atelier and met influential architects such as Adolf Loos , Auguste Perret , Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier . During this time he made friends with Max Ernst , Lee Miller and Man Ray . In 1927 he visited London and designed London's first modern business premises for the perfume manufacturer Helena Rubinstein . Before finishing his studies, he founded an office community in 1929 and initially worked as an interior designer. Goldfinger was also heavily influenced by Corbusier's work Vers une architecture and greatly admired his mentor Perret, who is considered a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction. In 1933 he was secretary of the French delegation of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne .

In the early 1930s he met his future wife, the artist Ursula Blackwell. They moved together to Highpoint I in 1934, where the first of two apartment blocks were built in London. With the move he became a member of the MARS Group . Before the Second World War , due to a lack of construction contracts, he mostly designed interior fittings, toys, exhibition stands, graphics and even film sets with the artist Robert Delaunay . His most important building at this time was a terraced house with three units on Willow Road in Hampstead, in the middle house of which he moved in with his family. This house at 2 Willow Road is now a listed building by The National Trust, a nonprofit .

Familiarity of the name

After the war, Goldfinger was commissioned in 1947 to design new offices for the Daily Worker newspaper and a headquarters for the Communist Party of Great Britain . Both buildings have since been demolished. He also designed the Alexander Fleming House in Elephant and Castle, in south-east London, for the Ministry of Health. In the 1950s he designed two primary schools from prefabricated concrete for the London County Council .

Ernő Goldfinger's surname became particularly well known through Ian Fleming's eighth book Goldfinger in the James Bonds series of novels and in 1964 through the movie Goldfinger of the same name . Ian Fleming campaigned with other citizens against the demolition of Victorian brick houses on Willow Road, which made way for Goldfinger's modern homes. Fleming, who disliked Goldfinger's concrete architecture, is said to have avenged himself by choosing the name Goldfinger for the villain of his novel - this claim is repeatedly made by the press. When the novel was published in 1959, Ernő Goldfinger then consulted his lawyers. An out-of-court settlement was reached . Among other things, it stipulated that the full name of the villain Auric Goldfinger should be mentioned as often as possible . Nevertheless, the high level of awareness of the name and the inevitable association with the novel and film original led to confusion, sometimes also to ridicule or incredulous reactions from people who called Ernő Goldfinger after the works were published. As a good side of this unwanted popularity, Ernő Goldfinger remarked to the press that he never had to repeat his name when he was introduced.

Later architectural work

Between 1965 and 1967, the 27-storey residential high-rise Balfron Tower was built on behalf of the Greater London Council near the Blackwall Tunnel in the brutalist style based on Goldfinger's designs. The 84 meter high house offers a total of 146 apartments. The most striking feature is the separate tower, which contains the elevator system and is connected to the main building via seven skyways . The Trellick Tower , which was built between 1966 and 1972, was designed according to a similar principle . With 31 stories or 98 meters, it is even slightly higher than the Balfron Tower and, once completed, was considered one of the most shameful structures in London. Goldfinger was nominated four times for the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal for Architecture , but never received the award.

In 1977 Goldfinger retired from active work as an architect. He died a few days after his 85th birthday on 15 November 1987 in his home in Hampstead and was in Golders Green Crematorium cremated , where his ashes is located. Ernő Goldfinger and his wife had two sons and a daughter.

Buildings

Goldfinger House, 2 Willow Road, Hampstead

Trellick Tower

• 1938: Weiss shop, 2 / 2a Golders Green Road in Barnet
• 1938: Goldfinger residence 2 Willow Road , Hampstead
• 1950: Greenside School
• 1952: Brandlehow School
• 1954–1956: Apartment block 10, Camden Town, Greater London
• 1955: Carr's Papers office building , Solihull, West Midlands
• 1957: Fulton House on the Swansea University campus
• 1960–1963: Metro Central Heights residential building (formerly: Alexander Fleming House) in Southwark
• 1964–1965: Haggerston School in Hackney
• 1965–1967: Balfron Tower in the East End
• 1967–1970: Carradale House in the East End
• 1968–1972: Trellick Tower in North Kensington
• 1968–1975: Cheltenham Estate / Edenham Way in North Kensington

Publications

• British Furniture Today , A Tiranti 1951, ISBN 978-0854588992 .
• Auguste Perret 1874–1954 , 1956.

literature

• Nigel Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect . Routledge, London, 2004, ISBN 978-0415379458 .
• Robert Elwall: Ernő Goldfinger , Academy Editions, 1996, ISBN 978-1854904447 .
• Patrick Goode, Stanford Anderson, Colin St John Wilson: The Oxford companion to architecture , Oxford University Press 2009, ISBN 978-0198605683 , p. 372.
• Edwin Heathcote (Ed.): Furniture + Architecture , John Wiley & Sons 2002, ISBN 978-0470845684 , pp. 7-13.

Web links

Commons : Buildings by Ernő Goldfinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ernő Goldfinger. In: arch INFORM .
• Design Museum London : Exhibition on Ernő Goldfinger
• Biographical summary of Ernő Goldfinger
• Design Heroes: Ernö Goldfinger - Article about E. Goldfinger as well as interior and exterior shots of the buildings he designed
• Der Tagesspiegel : You only live once , by Susanne Kippenberger, May 25, 2008

Individual evidence

1. ^ Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect , p. 9.
2. ^ Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect , p. 11.
3. ^ Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect , p. 12.
4. ↑ European Route of Industrial Culture : Biographical Data on E. Goldfinger
5. ↑ Jörn Ebner:… getting on in years. Balfron Tower, 1963–65; Trellick Tower, 1966–72. in: Deutsche Bauzeitung, Volume 136, ISSN  0721-1902 , p. 84.
6. ↑ The National Trust : 2 Willow Road ( Memento of the original from August 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ^ Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect , p. 181.
8. ↑ Jörn Ebner: … getting on in years. Balfron Tower, 1963–65; Trellick Tower, 1966–72 . in: Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 136, ISSN  0721-1902 , p. 82.
9. ↑ Times Online : Was Ian Fleming the real 007? , Article by Ben Macintyre, April 5, 2008
10. ^ Warburton: Ernő Goldfinger: The Life of an Architect , p. 3.
11. ↑ Lynsey Hanley: Estates: An Intimate History , Granta Books 2008, ISBN 978-1862079854 , p. 111.
12. ↑ Royal Gold Medal online exhibition: Erno Goldfinger (1902–1987) ( Memento of the original dated May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Family of Ernő Goldfinger ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-201973
15. ↑ Developer fined again over Goldfinger cottage  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , BD online , April 4, 2008  
16. ↑ http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-477844
17. ↑ http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-442134
18. ↑ http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-486896
19. ↑ Campaign aims to save Goldfinger housing , BD online , February 27, 2009