Geoff Goldberg, the youngest son of modernist architect Bertrand "Bud" Goldberg, grew up in the Gold Coast Historic District of Chicago. Geoff’s time as a child was largely spent at two houses: his family’s Astor Street residence, a large neo-Georgian brick mansion purchased in the early 1950s and renovated by his father on a modest budget. And his grandmother’s residence and art studio at 1328 North State Pkwy—two skillfully built Art Deco brick houses front and back on a very narrow lot, just 18-1/2 feet wide. Goldberg linked them with a bridge that also served as a kitchen. Geoff visited his grandmother’s place at least twice a week, as the two houses were only three blocks away from each other. Both places featured inventive details and very unusual fabrications: floating glass walls, exposed steel beams, dramatically designed light fixtures, personal bathrooms, dressing rooms, cabinetry, and industrial fixtures for washing dishes. In short, Goldberg treated his own dwelling and the house of his mother-in-law as his true laboratory. 

Bud Goldberg was born in 1913 in Chicago. He attended Harvard College. Never graduating from it he set out for Germany where he studied in the Bauhaus during its final year in 1933 and worked part of that year at the office of Mies van der Rohe in Berlin. He returned to Chicago without ever acquiring his professional degree. After several apprenticeships, he started his own practice in 1937. His extensive hands-on experience soon earned him both architecture and engineering licenses. The architect’s most celebrated works are all in Chicago: Marina City (1967), River City II (1986), Prentice Women’s Hospital (1975, Demolished), and Raymond Hillard Homes (1966).

In our conversation with Geoff Goldberg, who followed in his father’s footsteps to become an architect, we discussed their experience working together, the roles of Geoff’s mother and grandmother, the notion of cellular spaces in his father’s architecture, the iconic status of Marina City, his natural showmanship, remembering his father as a brilliant problem-solver, and getting to know him intimately well. 

Vladimir Belogolovsky: Your mother, Nancy Goldberg studied mathematics and philosophy at Smith College. She was riding horses, had a multi-engine pilot’s license, and for 20 years she owned and managed Chicago’s most popular restaurant, Maxim’s de Paris which was designed by your father in the basement of his Astor Tower. Could you touch on your mother’s role in his life?

Geoff Goldberg: She was not a housewife. Let’s be very clear about this. She was a businesswoman, very bright, decisive, direct, and focused. She could have managed a Fortune 500 company if she had a chance. He would not have the career he had without her; there is absolutely no doubt about that.

In her 20s, during the war, she was drafting at Douglas Airfield for the aviation industry. She had a pilot’s license, which is only one step down from jets. She was very familiar with automobiles and speed, and she was a very astute businesswoman. The story of Maxim’s de Paris is central to our family. My mother’s family owned the land on which the Astor Tower was going up at the same time as Marina City. My parents were not sure whether it should be apartments or a boutique hotel. The decision was finally made to build a hotel at which point my father realised that it needed a restaurant. So, he asked my mother’s mother, “What is the best restaurant in the world?” She used to go to Paris every summer and without any hesitation, she exclaimed, "Maxim’s de Paris!" So, my father immediately contacted the restaurant’s owner and he even involved the French Cultural General who was a mutual friend, and ended up setting up a French Center right in the tower. While it lasted, it showcased French paintings, tapestries, and rare books.

The restaurant was originally managed from Paris but six months later they were no longer interested. So, my mother stepped in. Soon she turned it into one of the 12 top restaurants in America, a must-stop for haute cuisine lovers and culture cognoscenti. My parents were very involved; they discussed the design and dishes at the dinner table. And all family celebrations, including my wedding reception, were held there, which was just next to both my parents’ house and my grandmother’s house. The three places constituted our family’s nexus.

VB: Have you ever asked your father why he ventured into architecture in the first place?

GG: He was not the kind of person who would discuss such things. He would probably say something like, “To change the world!” He wrote numerous papers and left insightful oral history recordings. He was an intellectual but he would not chat about these things.

At the Bauhaus, he studied under Mies, Josef Albers, and Ludwig Hilberseimer. I think Albers influenced him the most. He said that Albers taught him how to see and how to understand space. They remained friends throughout Albers’s life.

Once back in the States in 1934, he discussed his prospects in New York with Philip Johnson who urged him to go back to Chicago. At the time the city had an unusual modernist scene with many progressive projects being planned and built. The work in Chicago was American, inventive, informed, and exciting. So, my father went back and spent three years working for three fascinating young Chicago architects. First, for George Frederick Keck of Keck & Keck, a pioneering designer of passive solar houses, then worked for Paul Schweikher who later became dean at Yale, and, finally, for Howard Fisher who was developing a low-cost prefabrication housing company. In 1937 my father went into practice on his own and completed his first house that year. He received both his architecture and engineering licenses sometime in the 1940s based on his experience by that time. 

VB: He considered Mies to be his mentor. How close were they after Mies relocated to Chicago?

GG: They first reconnected when he went with Mies and three other young architects, fellow Bauhaus students to meet Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin East in Wisconsin, on a four-day visit in the late 1930s. It was around that time that Mies started to teach at the Armour Institute, which by 1940 became the Illinois Institute of Technology, IIT. Mies did not speak much English then. My father spoke German and translated both ways, perhaps with others too. It was one prolonged meeting but I am not sure how close they were. I know that Mies came to my father’s office once to critique his projects. My father never talked about it except for a brief mention in his oral history.

After Marina City the Chicago Miesian circle was not very happy with my father. They thought it was a travesty and a rejection of Mies. They objected to his formal language, choice of material—concrete—and the notion of cellular spaces, particularly explored in his hospital and housing work, versus Mies’ universal spaces. They saw his work as a rejection of the fundamental principles of Mies. I would not say that he was an outcast from that group but he was not beloved. Still, most of those architects were trained under Mies at the IIT, whereas my father worked for Mies and was trained under him in Germany. So, they had to give him some room because he had a deeper relationship with Mies. Also, many people who worked at my father’s office were IIT graduates. So, there was always a Miesian understanding even if the overt aspect of the work was not necessarily thought of as of that school. I think my father always believed he was a Miesian in a deep way even though it looked very different formally. Miesian work goes beyond form and details. It is about priorities, value systems, the role of negative space, the role of darkness, and the silence of blackness that is quite profound. It was more like a religion than a school of thought. 

VB: Speaking about your father in relation to Marina City you said that he was a real showman who understood the power of promotion. He had the talent to be convincing, right?

GG: Unlike many other architects who are good at being showmen, he was incredibly meticulous in details. He knew fabrication and he knew construction. However, when he was putting on his promotional hat, he was incredibly charming. He was effective because he listened to you and he spoke to your thoughts. Somehow people could find their thoughts in his work. Part of it came from his father, Ben Goldberg, who was a restaurant equipment salesman. He believed in doing the right thing for his customers, cared, and was attentive. But it’s important to recognise that my father never let promotion distort core values. 

VB: It seems that Goldberg’s architecture evolved and he discovered his curvilinear language after many projects expressed orthogonally. Although it happened gradually and he designed curvilinear furniture early on what were some of the reasons and influences for that transition? Who influenced his work the most?

GG: Of course, my grandmother was working on curvilinearity. She surely influenced him in some ways. But it did not come from her and her influence was never direct. I would say they developed their own languages simultaneously and in conversation. Other influences would include Wright, especially such buildings as Johnson Wax, which is practically down the road. He experimented with curvilinear furniture starting as early as 1939. He traveled widely. He saw the work of Gaudi. But you can never trace ideas expressed in his buildings directly. He photographed details he liked, and people moving in space. In some cases, you will find his photos of catching people at various moments—very humorous and ironic. He was sensitive to a broad range of issues. All of these explorations can point to where his fascination with curvilinearity comes from. And he combined both orthogonal and curvilinear systems. For example, all of his hospitals have curvilinear forms, specifically how towers were designed for patient rooms. But they also have orthogonal bases for administration and offices.

VB: You have said, “Goldberg surrounded himself with many different types and forms of art. These works served as his visual library.” Let’s talk in more detail about your grandmother, a sculptor Lillian Florsheim. What were some of the key parallels with your father’s work?

GG: Both explored architectural issues, including curvilinearity. My grandmother was also influenced by such close friends of hers as Georges Vantongerloo, an early member of the De Stijl group, and Max Bill who also was trained as an architect at the Bauhaus. Both my father and grandmother knew Max Bill and collected his work too. Her own work is not derivative of either Vantongerloo or Bill, but rather an extension of it. One of her most interesting pieces was in my father’s studies at home, which he would see every day. There was also a Max Bill piece at the house, along with many Albers. My father also collected Paul Klee’s paintings and drawings. He enjoyed them for their mystical profundity and creativity. While Lillian had an extensive collection of art, my father never saw his as a collection. To him, it was a library. He was also interested in pre-Columbian, Chinese, and Greek art such as terracotta pieces, all dealing with issues of form. So, he was a student of form, as was Lillian. Theirs was an ongoing conversation, powerful but a lot unspoken. She would say, “I think you might like this.” And he would say, “Did you look at that?” That was it. They were independent thinkers, who, along with my mother visited artists. For instance, my grandmother met Hans Arp. So, there are linkages. 

VB: Did you ever discuss with your father your desire to become an architect?

GG: No. This was not an easy topic; my mother thought it was not a good move. She said, “You will never get out from underneath his shadow.” She was right, of course. Nevertheless, he was quietly pleased. But he never pushed me. He wanted to be clear that I wanted to become an architect on my own terms and for my own reasons. Things in our house did not revolve only around architecture. There was a cross-interdisciplinary nature of discussions—entrepreneurial, artistic, business, social, material, and on and on. I learned how to weld as a kid, for example, and we shared a deep interest in all aspects of photography. The idea was to learn a broad range of things. By the time I was in college, I thought architecture could combine many of these interests. And once at the GSD, I fell in love with the discipline of architecture, particularly the art of architecture. It was different from my father’s because he was constantly thinking about how things were made. 

VB: You worked at your father’s office until 1990. What was it like?

GG: I also worked there during some of my summers before that. When I came in 1985, he put me to work on a straightforward office building in Arizona, which I managed. I then moved on to the Wright College project in Chicago. Throughout my time there I worked on really hard-core stuff. I was on construction sites. I had to work on standardising details. He wanted me to learn aspects of architecture other than just design, which I preferred, of course. It was not very romantic. I was in the trenches.

Before the 1950s the office was very small, about ten people. With the Marina City project, the office grew to around 30 people. In the 1970s, with a number of new hospitals, it had as many as 150 people, including engineering which he always liked in-house. For a while, he also had an office in Palo Alto and in Boston. At that time, it was one of the biggest offices in Chicago behind only SOM, Perkins & Will, and maybe Holabird & Root. When I joined the office, it had shrunk to about 90 people. And by the time I was leaving in 1990, it was just 30 people, as work was thinning out, lessening until the end. There was no one capable of continuing the practice after my father’s passing in 1997. There were brilliant designers and detailers there for many years but not on the management side. After I left, I worked on my own art and then managed large urban infrastructure projects for the city. Then I taught design at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and ran my own architectural practice focusing on interiors that are quite sophisticated and complex in their detailing; I call them jewel boxes.

VB: What do you remember most about your father?

GG: Oh, the twinkle, the impishness. He was a profoundly interesting man. I got to know him, intimately, through architecture, and he was not an easy person at times. Other times, he was a lot of fun, socially or even through his architectural thoughts. He would take something, turn it around, put it upside down, inside out, and then turn it into something else. It was incredibly joyful. And he had a curiosity that was unending and rigour to follow through with it. He gave me books on Jazz, chaos, or colour theory, you name it. He was all about probing and you would go with him. He was incredibly engaging and he would put a smile on your face, no doubt about it.

Then he was really committed to architecture. There was one time at the office when several experienced designers could not solve one very complicated design detail. My father came, looked at the problem, took all the drawings to his office on a Friday night, and then spent the entire weekend working on that one problem. When he came out on Monday morning everything was solved and it was absolutely brilliant. How can you not admire that!?