Erno Goldfinger
He was and is one of the most controversial architects of the twentieth century, praised as a visionary by some, derided by others who view ‘Brutalist’ architecture as a post-World War II blot on London’s landscape.
Most of the tenants of Balfron Tower, Glenkerry House and Carradale House have probably never heard of Erno Goldfinger - the architectural visionary whose concrete visions became reality in Poplar. Those who do know the name may not consider him a hero - though even they might be surprised that he became a Bond villain, the evil Auric Goldfinger, in the James Bond book and movie of the same name. The unusual moniker is no coincidence, for Ian Fleming, in a magnificent piece of writerly revenge, based the diminutive, murderous, golf-cheating villain on his near neighbour in Hampstead.
Erno Goldfinger was born in Budapest in 1902, as the old Europe began the collapse that would eventually lead to World War I. With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the family moved to Paris, Erno enrolling at the Ecole National Superieure des Beaux-Arts. During the twenties there, he worked alongside Le Corbusier and Auguste Perret, champions of the new architecture, using reinforced concrete to create soaring new shapes of building, and sweep away the old conservatism. Perret was an advocate of ‘exposing’ elements of buildings that had hitherto been hidden. Today we think nothing of buildings that have their stairways, cooling systems and lifts on the outside, but in the early thirties it was revolutionary stuff.
Too revolutionary to win many commissions. Goldfinger moved to London in 1934 with his new wife Ursula Blackwell, an heiress to the Crosse & Blackwell food giant. Ursula’s money gave Erno the freedom to work free of pressure to earn, which was fortunate. There is nothing unusual about visionary architects struggling to win projects (London Olympics architect Zaha Hadid suffered the same fate during her early career) but through the thirties Erno’s only commissions were to design a home in Essex and three houses in Willow Walk, Hampstead, including Number 2, which would become the Goldfingers’ home. It was this structure which seems to have raised the ire of neighbour Ian Fleming, old-school and certainly no modernist.
After the Second World War, the left wing Goldfinger began to win work: a new HQ for the British Communist Party, offices for the Daily Worker newspaper, and a first foray into unabashed brutalism with the Ministry of Health’s Alexander Fleming House at the Elephant and Castle. Gradually the tide turned: a shortage of housing after the war set the Government’s mind to tower blocks as a perfect way to house large numbers of people, economically and in a small area … Goldfinger’s time had come.
Up went the 27-storey Balfron House in Poplar, swiftly followed by its twin, Trellick Tower in Notting Hill. Poplar then got the 11-storey Carradale House and the 14-floor concrete slab that is Glenkerry House. The stunned local residents, ushered from their little Victorian terraces and temporary accommodation, had never seen anything like them. To complete Poplar’s Brutalist experiment, architects Alison and Peter Smithson delivered the ’streets in the sky’ of Robin Hood Gardens at the turn of the seventies. Poplar was now the proud possessor of arguably the ugliest buildings in London.
Erno of course didn’t see it that way, having a genuine will to improve the lot of city dwellers and writing “Cities can become centres of civilisation where men and women can live happy lives. The technical means exist to satisfy human needs. The will to plan must be aroused. There is no obstacle but ignorance and wickedness.” He also lived in Flat 130 of Balfron Tower for two months in 1968, to discover what the residents liked and disliked.
The irony is that the buildings that led to all the fuss - those little houses in Willow Walk - are actually very nice, and to modern eyes not at all brutal. But Fleming didn’t see it that way. He also knew of Goldfinger through a golfing friend and mercilessly (and not very subtly) lampooned him, turning the 6ft2in Erno into 5ft nothing Auric. Erno was a bombastic, bullying figure, who would apparently sack assistants for making jokes. Erno’s business associate Jacob Blacker was asked for his opinion of a proof copy of the book in 1959. He told his friend that he could see only one difference: “You’re called Erno and he’s called Auric.” The man with no discernible sense of humour did not react well and he told his lawyers to sue. Publishers Cape settled and paid Erno’s costs, but Fleming was furious, instructing Cape to pop an erratum slip in the books, changing the villain’s name to Goldprick … wisely, Cape demurred. Worse was to come when the book became a hit film in the sixties. The Goldfingers would receive late night phone calls, with sniggering callers adopting cod Sean Connery accents and asking ‘Goldfinger? This is Agent OO7′.
But reputations rise, fall and rise again. Goldfinger was derided but his work has risen in critical esteem in recent years. As for Balfron Tower, it’s been a Grade II listed building since 1998, so love it or hate it, Poplar’s Brutalist masterwork isn’t going away.