Bertrand Goldberg

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(b. Chicago, Illinois 1913; d. 1997)

Bertrand Goldberg was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1913. He studied at Harvard University, at the Bauhaus, and at the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology). The acting principal of Bertrand Goldberg Associates in Chicago since 1937, Goldberg established a branch office in Boston in 1964.

Although Goldberg's early work was a direct outgrowth of his training at the Bauhaus and his work with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he eventually rebelled against what he calls "the engineer's module applied to society." He considers rectilinear shapes directly opposed to most human activity and instead advocates nuclear forms.

Goldberg believes that circular buildings serve activity better and help create community. He also claims that circular buildings provide more efficient wind resistance, more direct mechanical distribution and more usable interior square footage. Complaining that many architect's structurally misuse concrete, he created curvilinear experimentations in concrete shell structure.

Over the years, Goldberg developed a theory of kinetic space based on nonparallel walls that set a space in motion. A true student of the principles, if not the forms of the German Bauhaus, Goldberg remains virtually without a following despite being widely published and well-known.

References
Muriel Emmanuel. Contemporary Architects. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980. ISBN 0-312-16635-4. NA 680-C625. p293-295.

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