ABSTRACT
In 1959, Mies van der Rohe came to receive the RIBA Gold Medal. He stayed
in London and spent several days in the Goldfinger office. Ernö took him to
Cambridge to see in particular the glorious Kings’ College Chapel. For greater
dramatic effect, Goldfinger had gone ahead and closed the doors to the
chapel so that he could throw them open for Mies. As he opened the doors a
shaft of light came suddenly through the clouds, lighting up the chapel. ‘You
see! God is on our side!’ declared Goldfinger.1 And that is how it must have
seemed. Like Mies, Ernö had ambitions to build tall buildings, though their
architectural sympathies were very different. Ernö held Mies personally
responsible for the widespread use of glass curtain walls in modern building,
an effect Goldfinger likened to the stocking-masks used by burglars. As they
were going through Bowater House near Hyde Park in a taxi, Ernö waved his
finger, and declared excitedly ‘This is all your fault, Mies!’ Mies replied,
deadpan, ‘I was not the architect for that building’.2
