Description: This RIBA Drawings Monograph on Erno Goldfinger is timed to coincide with the National Trust's opening of 2 Willow Road, Hampstead, London, the most significant of Goldfinger's pre-war works and his former home. Of all the architects whose drawings and papers the RIBA holds, Goldfinger's comprise the largest and most comprehensive single collection, and the selection presented here demonstrates both the vast scope and the consistency of a career which sheds light on the development of Modernism in Britain. There are drawings to represent all Goldfinger's key concerns and major projects, from the interior and furniture designs of the twenties and thirties, the exhibition designs for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs during the war years, to the more infamous high-rise mass-housing schemes and urban planning projects of the post-war years (Elephant and Castle, Rowlett Street and Edenham Street). The drawings themselves range from impressionistic sketches exploring initial design ideas to more formal finished drawings, and demonstrate a free approach to media which incorporates pencil, pen, watercolour, gouache, charcoal, crayon and collage. Accompanying these illustrations Robert Elwall's sensitive and carefully researched introduction and captions examine Goldfinger's life and work in light of the current reassessment of post-war architecture.

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