The Twentieth Century Society

CONVERSATION WITH ERN GOLDFINGER

Author(s): GAVIN STAMP and ERN GOLDFINGER
Source: Journal (Thirties Society), No. 2 (1982), pp. 19-24
Published by: The Twentieth Century Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41859088
Accessed: 11-10-2016 19:06 UTC
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From 1912 I learned English from Mr P. H. Redmond

who visited us twice a week at the flat : My family were pro-

CONVERSATION WITH

English Between 1914 and 1918 Mr Redmond accompanied

my brother and me to Transylvania. There was no question

ERN GOLDFINGER

of the English being interned as far as I can remember. When

grandfather Goldfinger died in 1916 - he was born the same

year and died the same year as the Emperor Franz-Josef -

Father took on the family business , bought out his brothers

GAVIN STAMP talks to the designer of the Helena Rubinstein
and sisters and was released from the Army. He also bought
Salon.
a house on the southern slopes of Mount Geliert. The intention
was to rebuild the house. The architect appointed to do this

gave my Mother the books by Hermann Muthesius - Das

Englische Haus - although it was not rebuilt in the " English
Ern Goldfinger came to Britain from Paris in 1934.style." This is when I encountered English architecture for

Unlike most of the Continental modern architects who arrived

the first time , but I must admit it did not mean much to me
in Britain to find an environment insufficiently appreciative
then.
of their work, Goldfinger did not move on across the Atlantic
In 1916 the last King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria
but made London his home. Nor did he merely repeat the
acceded to the throne and the young Goldfinger witnessed
conventional white Modern Movement style; trained in the his coronation in Budapest. I was there in the crowd. I got
Classical tradition of the Beaux-Arts, Goldfinger responded a permit through the Boy Scouts of which I was a member.
to English Georgian architecture, which was the aspect ofI was a Boy Scout in 1912-13 , before the War. The funny
British architecture which then appealed to him most. His thing was that it had military connotations during the War ,
principal work of the 1930s was a group of three houses in despite the cowboy hat. I saw King Charles ride up Coronation
Willow Road, Hampstead, built in 1937-39 and which he
mound , made from the soil from the 50 counties of Hungary.
regards as a modern version of the Georgian terrace. In the
The King was supposed , after being crowned, to mount a
middle house, No. 2, with its furniture designed by the archiwhite charger and gallop up this mound and with a sword point
tect and filled with the works of such artists as Max Ernst,
in four directions - north, south, east, west - but his crown
and Ozenfrant, Ern and Ursula Goldfinger still live, togetherwobbled as he had a very small head. I thought it was a bad
with Goldfinger's mother, who is 98 years of age.
omen.
In 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed; in 1919
$ $ $ $ $ 3fC
Budapest fell under the Communist regime of Bela Kun and
the Goldfingers left, first for Vienna and then Switzerland.
I was born in 1902 in Budapest In
but
spent
the
six
years
1919-20
Goldfinger
wasfirst
at Le Rosay
School
in Gstaad:
of my life in a Transylvanian market
town
- the
There they taught
in French.
I couldbirthplace
hardly speak it. Between
of my mother. Father , who hadthebeen
lawyer
in Vienna,
age of 17aand
30 I spoke French.
I am very at was
home in
sent there by his father to manage
the family forests and
French.
sawmills. Mother's family also had forests and sawmills and a
Goldfinger
studied architecture
in lived
Paris at the
most exciting flourmill on the river.
Father's
family
in Ecole
Nationale
et
Suprieure
des
Beaux-Arts,
which
he
entered
Budapest and Vienna. (The two capitals of the Dual Monarchy
in 1923
and where
he received
a sound
Classical
training. In
of Austria-Hungary). To reconcile
my
father
with
his
exile
1924
he
was
a
co-founder
of
the
breakaway
BeauxArts
from the capital , the family provided him with "perks";
"Atelierof
Auguste
Perret". for
He still me.
has immense
admiration
one of these was the gift of a pair
ponies
In 1908
for Perret
- the
last Classicist
: But
Perret disapproved of the
we moved to Budapest to aflat near
the
Houses
of
Parliament,

modern master
Goldfinger
met in Paris:
Adolf Loos.
above the " Consltate-General " other
of Japan.
The
summers
were
Auguste
Perret
refused
to
see
him.
Perret
was
very
French.
spent for one month in Transylvania near the forests and a
He thought
tainted with
Loos ,
wasand
born in
month in the Austrian Alps or on
the Loos
Adriatic
, modernism.
in Istria
Brno,of
in Moravia),
he was
really as
Austrian
one glorious summer in 1910 onBrunn
the(now
Lido
Venice.
I can
well
Classicist.
remember the Piazza without the Campanile - it had collapsed ,
Loos was
a very en
passant
/ think in 1902 - and the smell of the
vapore
ttos
. acquaintance. I first met him
in the Caf du Dme. I met everybody there, like Max Ernst
and Ferdinand Lger. We didn't sit at the Deux Magots at that
time; in the evening everybody sat in the Dme and Loos held

court. I went with Loos to the Paris Exhibition (1925). One

time we were sitting in the Dme and a young Austrian

architect came up: " Master , I have achieved a fabulous thing.

I am going to work for Le Corbusier. " Loos says : "My dear
boy, when you come to Paris you come to learn French, not
Esperanto." He hated Corbusier's architecture , just as I hate
his "Kasbah " architecture - all the white stuff.
Loos had an intense admiration for England, although
in Loos's mind England and America were a bit confused.
He was in America in the 1890s and wrote those famous

articles for the Neue Freie Presse (later collected under the
title Ins Leere Gesprochen). He was completely sold on
England. He disclosed to me that there was a nation on the
other side of the Channel which used feet and inches, which
I didn't believe. I never heard of such a thing before. Loos
A Ern Goldfinger at the age of about
tour,
with
his you
younger
said, when
you go
to England
must go to Maples. All
brother and nanny , driving his pony carriage in Transylvania.

the marvellous chairs are at Maples , in a great hall. The great

English
invention
is that you
don't havedestroy
furniture to furnish
In August 1914, when the Great
War
which
would
rooms, butout,
chairs toGoldfinger
sit in. He also told thatwas
architects
the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke
indon't
design chairs: they sithouse.
in chairs - advice
certainly did not
Transylvania at his maternal grandfather's
We I were
take.Father who then went up
ordered back to Budapest by my
The famous
Knize
chairHorse
in Paris, now
in a museum in
to Vienna to claim back his Commission
(in
the
Artillery
)
Czechoslovakia, was a Maples chair, as far as I can remember.
and to volunteer for active service. The summer routine
In 1927 Loos designed Knize Gentlemen's Outfitters in
changed - one month in Transylvania - once we heard the
guns on the Russian front - and one at my Father's postingParis on the Champs Elysees: a fabulous thing : As you came
in the Army , in Silesia or Poland. It was all very exciting :in from the street there was a big showcase , and behind that
the salon. In that showcase as a trademark there was a lifeI could ride his army horses and meet his fellow officers.
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size polo player, made up of articulated figures . It was fabulous - with a galloping horse, full size. Inside the salon there
were the chairs . It was meant to be like Savile Row, very
smart, but where the Continental imitation of the English
tailor fell down was in the salon - much too smart. It was
fantastic in England then: 12 guineas for a three-piece suit.
In Paris it cost twice as much.

Goldfinger first visited England in 1926 to design the

now destroyed Helena Rubinstein Beauty Salon in Grafton

Street. I had an American girl friend and she worked for

Helena Rubinstein and she recommended me. I resented

Helena Rubinstein because she was overbearing, but she was

a very interesting woman when I think back on it. She invited
me to lunch at the Ritz and cooked dinners for me in her
house in Grafton Street. I was still at the Beaux-Arts at that
time. I did everything metric. The funny thing is that I can't
think metric now: it doesn't mean anything. The contractor
was Sage, the greatest shopfitters. Sage's were in the Gray's
Inn Road and had a place in Buenos Aires, a place in Berlin
before the 1914 War and a place in Paris. Shop fronts in
England at that time were all painted green. Everything
was fake Queen Anne, like Fortnum & Mason's. I had been
brought up on Vignola at the Beaux-Arts and so resent it when
fifth-rate architects mess up Classical architecture.
My thing was decoration-less and at Sage's the draughtsmen
put decoration on the drawings because they thought the poor
A Em Goldfinger in c.1940
chap couldn't do it. Did Helena Rubinstein like the shop?
Not at all. She thought it was terrible and didn't want to
pay me. We quarrelled over the colour of a carpet and some- tion. I was impressed by Harley Street - very English . The
most beautiful house in London is Chandos House (off
body else finished the job. So I sued her - the only client
Cavendish Square, by Robert Adam), the most arrogant
I ever sued - and got every penny out of her in Paris. My
lawyer was a student of law and lived in the same hotel whenunderstatement that ever happened. That is what is Classical
I was at the Beaux-Arts. She became very famous: one of the architecture: the proportions of windows and cornice and all
top barristers in Paris.
that. I used just the cornice - mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
Goldfinger was impressed with London: Terrific - much - that is what I did here. I never did what Corbusier did and
better than now. I came over Dunkirk-Tilbury. Left Paris at had buildings ending up in the sky . Modern architecture has
nine at night and arrived in London nine in the morning. The to be in proportion .
trains were wonderful. I had breakfast on the train from
The great contribution of England is Georgian. But hardly
Tilbury to London: fantastic, unbelievable! At one time I
had I time to look at it they were pulling it down. There is
travelled very posh on the Continent In my early days I
absolutely no respect for architecture tn England. ~My first
travelled Paris-Budapest on the Orient Express - very nice ; office in London was in No. 7 Bedford Square, on the east
but the L.M.S. was better than the Continental trains . But

side which belonged to the British Museum. You know, they

I stayed at a lousy hotel called the Grosvenor - absolutely
wanted to pull it down. When I was there we got notices
horrible. I had to put pennies into a gas meter. When
I came Ignorant vandals - unbelievable! Practically all
(1937-38).
next time I stayed in Dover Street at Batts Hotel, I think
.
the squares
are now spoiled. Terrible. I didn't then realise it
It does not exist any more.
was because people aren't interested in architecture, only in
Back in Paris, Goldfinger attended the Ecole d'Urbanisme
slogans.
at the Sorbonne in 1927-28. He much admires the planGoldfinger
and
is certain that the only architecture in Britain
scale of Paris. Haussmann, with the backing of Napoleon
which matters is part of the European tradition. I never saw
III, managed to give Paris the framework of a town; he rationalany architecture in England which was not international ised the "ceinture". The Pre f et after Haussmann, Hennard, is
Gothic, Elizabethan, Georgian. It has to do with how far the
my pin-up boy of circulation. He invented the roundabout. Roman Legions marched. I worked in Algeria for a time and
Fantastic chap. Goldfinger believes that cities are for cars asthere are these fabulous Roman towns there - the same as
much as for pedestrians. I always had a car - little cars and
they are everywhere else , but better preserved. He disputes that
big cars. My wife had a French Talbot: a beautiful car. We
there has been any alternative "vernacular" tradition, and much
brought it over to England. I always had cars with a right- dislikes the word. Where we are at variance is that there is only
hand drive - posh cars in France always had the wheel on
international architecture - except among the peasants , of
the right-hand side.

course, as in Switzerland , Scandinavia and in the Transylvania

He was not impressed with Corbusier's Voisin Plan for Carpathians . Nevertheless, he can admire a house like
Paris, which envisaged ranks of tower-blocks north of the
Lutyens's Deanery Garden, which he first saw in the pages

Seine. To make Corbusier's idiotic plan for Paris succeed

of Das Englische Haus, but denies that it represented any revival
you had to demolish Haussmann 's. And that imbecile Siegfried
of a tradition. There was no other tradition, no throwing back
Giedion was anti-Haussmann on principle. Goldfinger admires
to something else . From about the year 1500 to the year 1900

there wasn't such a vernacular architecture. When I was a little

the professionalism of the French: the joke is that those

French people went to proper schools.

architect in France in the 1920s the great thing was "Norman"

From 1924 until 1933 Goldfinger practised in France.architecture or "Provenal" architecture . In England it was the
Apart from a library in Alexandria and a monument in Algiers,
same: Tudor or Queen Anne. Deanery Garden is not

most of his work consisted of shops and apartment interiors

"vernacular", but Nordic. It is, of course, fake, but I like it.
in Paris - very austere and modern in style, with furniture to Goldfinger was not as impressed by the new English
his own designs. But, as an Anglo-maniac, I admired an English
architecture as he was by the old, and Britain seemed a
girl In 1933 Goldfinger married Ursula Ruth Blackwell, andconservative country in which there were many possibilities
the following year he came to London for good.
for a modern architect. Art Deco is a commercial thing. That

was what one was against in the '20s and '30s. I didn't like
Like many Continentals, Goldfinger much admired the

the RIBA Building: bastardized Swedish; not Classical, not

reticent urbanity of London's 18th-century architecture, so
The only buildings that excited me were Wells Coates's
much of which was being demolished between the wars.modern.
Of
flats and the Gorilla House by Tecton.
course I was impressed by Georgian architecture - Adolf

Loos ! They talked about the Adamstil in Vienna. In the

1920s Portland Place was not spoiled: a marvellous concep-

At first Goldfinger's practice again consisted largely of

shops and interiors. He designed a shop for P. and M. Abbatt

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international view of architecture at the meetings , which

took place in Cyril Sweet's office in Gordon Square. The job
of these groups is for members to meet each other. I found
this "Research" business ridiculous. (MARS stood for "Modern
Architectural Research") For social research you have to have
an organization - like the Building Station - not a group of
about six people. I'm a graduate of town planning; I knew
the difficulties town planning entailed. I don't think you
should spend time investigating what people think. You are
meant , as an architect , to know. In the 1930s everybody you
met said " you have to investigate but I believe architecture
is something you have to have at your fingertips. The great

thing about CIAM was that you met all these people: big

names , like Gropiusf Aal to , S tam.

By the time I got to the MARS Group Lubetkin had

already left. I never saw Lubetkin at those meetings. I knew
Lubetkin in Paris , in '24 or '25 when he first came there. He
had some mythology of social architecture. For me an architect is someone who is given a problem - social , structural ,
building , etc. - to solve like a maths problem. And he does it
- like throughout history.
Goldfinger also knew architects outside the committed
modern orbit of MARS, even though he did not usually like
what they did. I was a great pal of Oliver Hill's. We worked
on the Paris Exhibition together in 1937. Goldfinger did the

Children's Section in Hill's British Pavilion at the Paris World's

Fair. I didn't think much of Hill's architecture , but he was a

really nice chap. He lived rather grandly in the country , in

Sussex. In the barn there was a red bull , by Skeaping. You

came into a great Tudor Hall , with a dining room table on a

dais across the room. One was served like Henry VIII and he
flung bones to the dogs. I was not so impressed by this , and
soon realised that the Korda film was then showing and Oliver
was modelling himself on it. He was playing a role. We went
A Mr Richard Wyndham's Studio in the rue Froidvaux, Paris, 1930
riding on the downs at Goodwood and we galloped for miles.
I was determined to keep up with him. When I met him again
in Gloucestershire years later he complained about me
exhausting him out riding as he was trying to keep up with
me. You never know. He also had a very grand house in
Toys in Wimpole Street, and "Easiwork" Furniture for a
Canadian kitchen furniture manufacturer. I was very much Belgravia.
in
the children's world. The character of my shops was that they
were set back from the street. A house in Broxted, Essex, was
V Goldfinger's studio in No. 3, rue de la Cit Universitaire, Paris,
designed with his sometime partner, Gerald Flower. The
1931 . Goldfinger is sitting in the middle.
commission had come through Flower, who was Goldfinger's
young assistant. Much more important were Jimmy CadburyBrown , Ralph Tubbs and Donald Pilcher , who all worked for
me before the War. I have never had a big office ; it doesn't
work ; Mies van der Rohe told me once: you can't have more
than eight assistants .

Apart from Wordsworth House in Westhill, Highgate, and

his own houses in Hampstead, Goldfinger had no large jobs
before the Second World War. I never knew how to get jobs;
they all came by miracle . My accountant put me in touch with

a man called P. H. Edwards , who was a developer. I didn't

know what developers were. He had an option on the

Cookmere valley near Brighton , but the scheme never came

off. Mr Edwards explained to me that he knew perfectly

well the difference between real Tudor and Fake Tudor. In

real Tudor you nailed real timber onto the masonry; in fake
Tudor you just painted it on. So now you know!

I knew people through the MARS Group - architects -

although that didn't get me any jobs. I knew a lot of people

in England through being secretary of the French section

of CIAM in 1933 , when we went to Athens (on the
Mediterranean cruise which produced the Athens Charter).

I was democratically elected - to the horror of Le Corbusier

and Giedion , who wished everybody to be nominated by

them. So I became an ex-officio member of the MARS Group.

I met Yorke , Wells Coates and Godfrey Samuel on this CIAM
outing. Yorke was a great pal of mine. John Summerson is the
first chap who wrote about me in England. I'm still a friend

of Summerson's (Summerson was a member of the MARS

Groups. He wrote about Goldfinger's shops in the Architect

and Building News. C. H. Reilly also praised the Helena

Rubinstein shop in The Architectural Review in July 1935).

Goldfinger was always dubious about the pretensions of

the MARS Group, in view of its amateur, social and rather

provincial character. I'm the chap who always stressed the

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A Studio and garage in Le Touquet, France, 1934

Maxwell Fry and Connell, Ward & Lucas in Frognal, Modern

Architecture . was a sensitive issue in Hampstead. Goldfinger
considered his design for the new houses to be a modern
version of the Georgian terrace, in both their proportion and
how nice he was. I did the exhibition and he was nice about it.
materials; but The Hampstead Preservation Society was my great
I wasn't favoured by the Academy at that time. I knew enemy
Lutyens's
- now I am a member of it. It was run by that awful
work through Muthesius; I didn't then know his later
work., who became a Minister later (Henry Brooke, later
Brooke
I think his early buildings terrific and , by the skin
of Brooke).
their
Lord
It wa assumed, erroneously, that Goldfinger's
houses
would be of white concrete. You know I abhor the
teeth , the English left in India something good: the
railways
and New Delhi. I don't admire the Cenotaph. The Midland
idea of white concrete - I objected to concrete. I tell you
Bank? Not very good - although you know what is good:
something. There are two sorts of people - clients , and
the Lutyens building in Finsbury Circus (Britannic House).
historians, like you - those who admit they can't read plans,
He was a charming person, and funny. He didn't take himself
and those who don't admit they can't read plans. I appealed
seriously. And Lutyens's some-time friend and collaborator against the objections and had support, from Julian Huxley,
in New Delhi, Sir Herbert Baker? He was a murderer of Archifor instance, and Bobby Carter. Progressive people wrote to
tecture, not an architect. How could I admire this sort of
The Times in my support.
architecture ? Think of the Bank of England. Soane is one
Goldfinger is unusual amongst modern architects in the
fact that he lives in a modern house - and one built to his
of my pin-up boys.
In 1937 Goldfinger designed his terrace of three houses
own design. Why not ? The chap who built Bedford Square
on a plot he bought in Willow Road, opposite Hampstead
Liverton, lived in No. 1 (No. 13, in fact) Ursula's Blackw
trustee uncle told me an old English saying: "Fools build
Heath. When he first came to London, Goldfinger and his
wife lived in St. John's Wood. Later they moved into Highpointhouses so that wise people can live in them" Besides , everything
I did I did as if it was done for me. When I built skyscrapers ,
I, the flats by Tecton in Highgate which were then being
like those in North Kensington, I designed flats I could live in
built. Absolute hell - awful flats. You had to go through
myself - and I did !
this big living room to go anywhere , and we had two children
No. 3 Willow Road was built for Stephen Wilson, a civil
and a nanny. We then had an establishment of a nanny , a
servant. The Goldfingers took the middle house and No. 1
cook and a chauffeur - although they did not live in, of
was built as a speculation for a company, Contemporary
course. I used to think that one should live in flats. Flats
are the Continental way of living in towns, but you have to Construction Ltd. The building was designed as a town house
in rural surroundings, overlooking Hampstead Heath. We never
have a concierge. In Highpoint there was a liveried chap
downstairs.
felt the need to have a dacha, a country retreat, like most of
our friends. The road was about 10ft above the garden level, so
The Goldfingers had a three year lease on their Highpoint
one could, like in most Georgian town houses (although for
flat, then they stayed in Flora Robson's house in Downshire
Hill. Then I saw a board out here in Willow Road, for land for
different reasons) enter at the ground floor and be on the
sale. There were four derelict worm-ridden cottages, which garden
we
side one floor up. On the ground floor one can penehad to buy out . 18th-century cottages - big deal ! Then there
trate, between the garages, to the centre of the house where
was an outcry: we were dislodging these poor proletarians .the circular staircase serves the upper two floors. No corridors !
Since the building of the ostentatiously Modern houses by A heirarchy of spaces, with the utmost plan economy. It was
Later I met Lutyens. During the War I was commissioned
by the Red Cross to make an exhibition at the Wallace Collection in aid of Russia, Patron of that exhibition was Lutyens.
As P.R.A. he opened it and I saw him a lot. I was surprised

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A Helena Rubinstein's shop in Grafton Street, London

designed to be adaptable . Walls could - and have been -

in the 1950s, when he won a competition for the new buildings

moved .

at the Elephant and Castle and designed the office building

As far as Goldfinger is concerned, the small number of in Albemarle Street. In such works can still be seen that
Modern-Movement buildings realised by members of the
attention to proportion and that rationalism in the use of the
MARS Group was not a distinct phenomenon. Let's get
ferro-concrete frame which Goldfinger owes to Perret and the
one thing clear: the '30s and the ' 40s are not separate things
- des Beaux-Arts. As he himself says, I want to be
Ecole
remembered as a Classical architect , not a kasbah architect .
they dovetail Goldfinger's career, however, only really grew
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GROUND FLOOR

FIRST FLOOR

SECOND FLOOR

A Plans of No. 2, Willow Road.

^ No. 2 Willow Road Looking from the

Studio to the Living Room on the First
Floor in 1939. (photo: Dell &
Wainwright, for the 'Architectural
Review')

V Nos. 1 , 2 & 3, Willow Road,

Hampstead, when newly completed

in 1939 (photo: Sydney Newberry)

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