2 Willow Road, Hampstead


Advertisement
United Kingdom's flag
Europe » United Kingdom » England » Greater London » Hampstead
March 16th 2010
Published: March 16th 2010
Edit Blog Post

An early and inspirational design, an unusual property for the National Trust to own, the brick terraced building was designed by the surrealist movement architect, Erno Goldfinger in the late 1930s. Designing it as a family home for himself and his family in 1939, he lived at 2 Willow Road until his death nearly 50 years later.

He had an interest in the integration of art and architecture. The Goldfingers were keen to host and organise the exhibitions at home and collect art works. They collected 60 art works over the 50 years of life at 2 Willow Road. The building is ideally suited for displaying sculptures, paintings, and ornaments with its exceptionally good use of light and those art works are displayed in the large area of wall space and on the wide window ledges and on top of the horizontally laid furniture. Visitors can find the works of the well-known 20th century artists, e.g. Bridget Riley, Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Sir Roland Penrose, Amidee Ozenfant. Ursula (Erno's wife) studied painting under Amidee Ozenfant in Paris. There are some etchings and sketching displayed in the wall of Studio where it was initially designed for her professional use.

2 Willow Road possesses a number of functional and modern features of furniture and fittings, e.g. sliding doors, spiral staircase, a compact sized fireplace, movable partitions and effective use of built-in cupboards and light fittings, all of which not only economises the space in a relatively small family home but also enhances the art collection.

Erno Goldfinger was a very innovative man. Visitors can admire the en-suite bathroom adjacent to the main bedroom, which he designed in the 1930s. Moreover, he was interested in ergonomics and designed dining room chairs with removable backs and office desk with cantilevered drawers. He worked with the children’s' toy manufacturers, Paul and Marjorie Abbatt and made a number of toys including a doll's house for Liz, which are displayed in the Nursery.


Advertisement



Tot: 0.183s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 16; qc: 59; dbt: 0.1308s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb