About this talk

Running time: 25 minutes

Hungarian born Erno Goldfinger spent the formative years of his life in the 1920s in Paris. He moved to England in 1933, where he has remained ever since.

He studied architecture at the École des Beaux Arts. Students could form a "commune" and choose a maître. Goldfinger, on the advice of Le Corbusier who never taught, chose Auguste Perret who generously gave space to the atelier in his newly-built Palais de Bois.

Even while studying, Goldfinger was designing furniture, interiors, exhibitions, and entering competitions, from 1925 to 1928 in partnership with André Sive. As in London later on, he was always involved in the promotion of modern art and architecture; and when the French branch of CLAM was formed, he became the Secretary.

He counted among his friends Pierre Jeanneret, Jean and André Lurçat, Adolf Loos, Amédée Ozenfant, Charlotte Perriand, Georges Badovici (publisher of the influential "L'Architecture Vivante") Pierre Chareau, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and so on.

His talk gives a vivid picture of the architectural life in Paris.

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