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Martins Bank’s original branch at  88
WIGMORE STREET was a lovely old corner aspect building, with a reassuring stone
façade. Quiet, and unassuming, it transacted the banking business of
customers in the area for almost forty years.
By 1968 however, the work of a number of top architects has tempted
Martins Bank to modernise… …and how!
A move across the road to 95 Wigmore Street heralds a building so
new, it almost defies description…
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In Service: 13 May 1968 until 1983/4
Branch Images © Barclays Ref 0030-3210
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Apocalypse, then…
 This is
the decade that first brought us the James Bond films, and with no hint of
irony, Ernö Goldfinger (yes, REALLY) is commissioned to do away with the old and bring in
only the newest of the new.
Goldfinger is well known as one of the Brutalist architects, and for
trying out his own buildings having famously lived at the top of a block of
flats for three weeks to “sample high rise living”. So, what of the new Branch? Is this “the
kiss of death from Mr Goldfinger”, as the song would have it? Externally, as we can see, this is a VERY long building, and
close-up, passers-by can see the name of the Bank repeated continuously
across the wall outside the main doors. Internally, Wigmore Street is
transformed into a kind of airport lounge, and the psychedelic window in
the Manager’s office has to be seen to be believed. The arrival of the new branch is heralded
by newspaper advertisements like this one, remastered from our advertising
collection. We do feel sorry for the
Golden Grasshopper, being symbolically transported by the two men from the
nearby closing branch at 88 Wigmore Street over the road to the new branch. Martins’ iconic symbol of history and
security may well become lost in the midst of this “shock of the new”. Martins Bank Magazine features Wigmore
Street in its Autumn 1968 issue, and their article tells us a little bit
more about the mysterious Mr Goldfinger…
 Some of Britain's top
architects have been commissioned to design the Bank's branches; the one responsible
for our new Wigmore Street premises can be numbered among the profession's
most renowned and colourful members.
Earlier this year Ernö Goldfinger
announced to the Press that he was moving into one of the top flats of a
twenty-six-storey block at Poplar that he had designed for the Greater
London Council. For three weeks he would be experiencing at first hand the
life 145 East End families were about to begin. “I feel it will be an
invaluable exercise from which I and future tenants will certainly gain a
great deal”, he stated.
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Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref 0030-3210
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Just what value anyone
would gain from his short sojourn became the subject of some heated
correspondence in the newspapers, but Mr Goldfinger was unperturbed. He
had been the centre of controversy before. The design of the house he
built for himself in Hampstead just before the last war aroused bitter
opposition at the time. Today no one would give the exterior more than a
cursory glance, although a peep inside would disclose a truly remarkable
dwelling. For a man
with so many fine buildings to his credit, with such courage of his
convictions, and with his name written so indelibly on the British
architectural scene, Ernö Goldfinger works in spartan surroundings. His
address is Piccadilly, but his suite of rooms is found round the corner in
Dover Street. To reach his office we climbed up four flights of narrow
stairs and were shown into a small L-shaped room full, it seemed at first,
of Ernö Goldfinger, broad, six feet tall and silver haired.
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Behind the scenes – Martins
Bank is so pleased with Wigmore Street, it feels the need to record for
posterity the staff kitchen, the safe, and the toilets!
Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref 0030-3210
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After greeting us he subsided behind a plain, black-topped
desk and we were able to take in the rest of the room—low drawing board, table, bookshelves, a
wall finished with blackboard paint and carrying some chalked calculations.
A metal sculpture and a painting by his wife were its only refinements. Ernö Goldfinger was born sixty-six years ago in Budapest.
At the age of 18 he settled in Paris where he studied for admission to the
Beaux Arts. Within four years he was designing furniture, writing about
international architecture for a Hungarian newspaper and helping to create
a new school or 'atelier' headed by his teacher, Auguste Ferret. One of
Ferret's concepts of architecture—'mobile or immobile all that occupies space is of the realm
of architecture'—has guided Goldfinger throughout his career. The following year, 1926, Goldfinger made his first
appearance on the English scene. With his partner he designed the Helena
Rubinstein salon in Grafton Street. Five years later he
married the English painter, Ursula Blackwell, and in 1934, at the age of
32, he settled in London. “I felt
there was great scope in England', Goldfinger explained, 'but it has been
an uphill climb. England places no value upon architecture”. However, England—and several other countries, notably France
and the USA— places value upon the varied work of this Hungarian-born
architect. Concurrently with designing shops, offices, schools, private
houses and exhibition stands he has produced designs for furniture,
fittings and even a wooden condiment set which went into mass production.
To Goldfinger design and architecture are one and versatility a most
desirable attribute. “Specialisation is old-fashioned: 20th century
architects should not specialise”.
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Have a nice trip! We suggest
the
Manager’s Room window is best
viewed
WITHOUT prior consumption of
halucenogenic substances…
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Image © Barclays Ref
0030-3210
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Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections
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Image © Barclays Ref
0030-3210
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Such has been his impact on British architecture that in 1963,
shortly after the completion of the Ministry of Health's Alexander Fleming
House—that part of London County Council's vast Elephant and Castle
project for which he was responsible — the journal Architectural Design produced a special issue devoted to his
work. At the present time his biography is being written. Our new Wigmore Street office is his first bank. The
accompanying photographs scarcely do justice to his creation which for him
is marred only by the need for counter screens. In this he has the
sympathies of many, bandits in particular. In
little more than an hour we had learnt much about this charming, impressive
man whose only hobby is architecture. Perhaps it is this devotion that places
him in the enviable position of being able to look back on forty-five
years' work and feel no dissatisfaction with any of it. There remained one
inevitable question, concerning his distinctive name. Had its
immortalisation in the works of Ian Fleming made any difference to him?
Ernö Goldfinger's face broke into a smile. “Now when somebody asks my name,
I don't have to repeat it”.
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 We don’t often use this feature to compare what are essentially
two DIFFERENT branches, but as the leap from old to new is such a big one,
we are comparing No 88 Wigmore Street (then) with its successor at No 95
Wigmore Street (a little bit later)…
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Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections - Geoff Taylor
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Image © Barclays Ref
0030-3210
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