2 Willow Road, Hampstead, NW3 1TH

Phone:

020-7435 6166

Website:

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/2-willow-road

Opening times:

Wed-Mon 11:00-17:00

How to get there:

Tube: Hampstead/ Station: Hampstead Heath

Entry fee:

Admission charge

2 Willow Road is the middle of three houses designed by the important and uncompromising Modernist architect Ernô Goldfinger, It was where he and his wife Ursula Blackwell, of the Crosse & Blackwell family, lived from 1939. Goldfinger died in 1987 and his wife in 1991, when the house and its contents were bequeathed to the National Trust. An important example of the modern movement, it is especially fortunate that the furniture and contents survive with it, which give a true sense of how the house was lived in.

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1902, Goldfinger trained in Paris, where he was introduced to the use of reinforced concrete, and moved to London in 1934. Best known for his monumental, Brutalist high-rise buildings of the 50s and 60s (Alexander Fleming House, Balfron Tower and Trellick Tower, some of London’s least-loved landmarks), the Willow Road houses are earlier, built in 1939 to much local opposition. Externally they form a narrow, rectangular block, of concrete with a flat roof, visually unified by horizontal lines. Internally they have large windows with views over Hampstead Heath. The main living area is on the second floor, open-plan with square proportions, vistas through framed spaces and carefully controlled colours and surfaces (smooth polished wooden floors, matt plywood, and textured concrete). The built-in furniture and other interior details, such as the raised open fire, were designed by Goldfinger. Items from his art collection on show include works by Henry Moore and Max Ernst. Goldfinger’s designs for the house show spare interiors, but the contents show that the reality of living was less austere.