2 Willow Road is part of a terrace of three houses in Hampstead, London designed by architect Ernő Goldfinger and built in 1938. It has been managed by the National Trust since 1995 and is open to the public. It was one of the first modernist buildings acquired by the Trust, giving rise to some controversy. Goldfinger lived there with his wife Ursula and their children until his death in 1987.
1–3 Willow Road was constructed in concrete and faced in red brick. A number of cottages were demolished to allow for the construction, which was strongly opposed by a number of local residents including novelist Ian Fleming (this was said to be his inspiration for the name of the James Bond villain Auric Goldfinger) and the future Conservative Home Secretary Henry Brooke. No. 2, which Goldfinger designed specifically as his own family home, is the largest of the three houses and features a spiral staircase designed by Danish engineer Ove Arup at its core. The building is supported by an external concrete frame, leaving room for a spacious interior uncluttered by structure, perhaps inspired by the Raumplan ideas of modernist architect Adolf Loos.
Goldfinger himself designed much of the furniture in No. 2, and the house also contains a significant collection of 20th-century art by Bridget Riley, Marcel Duchamp, Henry Moore and Max Ernst.
Entry is by timed ticket, and facilities are very limited. Nos. 1 and 3 remain private homes.
Famous quotes containing the words willow and/or road:
“Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love,
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“[T]he temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)