Marina City says goodbye to its architect

“With his rumpled hair and simmering eyes, his tweed jackets and stylish shirts, and his courtly, genteel air – now impish, now prickly – Mr. Goldberg often seemed more of a poet than an architect. He was once described as a humanist whose medium happened to be architecture.”
– Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1997

“He wasn’t designing for the building industry or for one client. He was able to work on a philosophical level. He wasn’t interested in architecture in the narrow sense. He was trying to understand the whole person and the whole social condition.”
– Geoffrey Goldberg, speaking of his father, Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg, to Dwell magazine

Bud died on October 8, 1997.

He had suffered a stroke. There were complications, and he died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago at the age of 84.

His wife, Nancy, had passed less than a year earlier, on November 12, 1996, at the age of 74.

Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin wrote the next day, “Goldberg’s significance transcended architecture. In the 1950s, when there was widespread pessimism about the future of cities as places to live, Mr. Goldberg posed a vital alternative with the five-building Marina City complex.”

Bertrand Goldberg was born in Chicago on July 17, 1913, and grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood. He studied at Harvard University and the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that was an influence on Modernist architecture. During that time, he worked in the office of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, considered one of Modern architecture’s pioneering masters.

(Right) Bertrand Goldberg in front of the east tower core in 1961. Photo by Portland Cement Association.

In 1933, after lecturing his landlady on the evils of Nazism, Goldberg, who was Jewish, was asked to leave Berlin. Back in Chicago, he finished his studies at Armour Institute, now known as Illinois Institute of Technology. Goldberg worked briefly for architects George and Fred Keck before starting his own practice in 1937.

His many influences included the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition, held to commemorate Chicago’s 100th anniversary, which featured modern, streamlined architecture in contrast with what he had studied in Germany.

His son, Geoffrey, says there was a poetic relationship between his father and Lillian H. Florsheim, the mother of Nancy Goldberg and a noted sculptor. He believes another artistic influence was Bertrand’s sister, Lucille Strauss, who was an actress in the 1930s.

Goldberg designed single-family homes, an ice cream store, gas station, prefabricated bathrooms, a theater, and hospitals. Besides Marina City, his major works included Astor Tower, Raymond Hilliard Center, Prentice Women’s Hospital, and River City. His last major project that was built was Chicago’s Wright College, completed in 1992.

Nancy Goldberg, restaurateur/saloon keeper

In a city known for culinary excellence, one restaurant stood out in the 1960s – Maxim’s de Paris, owned and managed by Nancy Goldberg.

Maxim’s opened in 1963 and quickly became a favorite of celebrities and Chicago’s elite. It was a replica of a famous Parisian restaurant with the same name.

Nancy was born in Chicago in 1922. Her father was Irving Florsheim, chairman of Florsheim Shoe Company from 1936 to 1959. She graduated from The Latin School of Chicago, a private school for students through 12th grade, and Smith College, where she studied mathematics and philosophy. She had a pilot’s license and during World War II worked at a plant that made bombers. Nancy won many trophies for horse riding and was considered a fine chef.

(Left) Nancy Goldberg, circa 1972, photographed by Victor Skrebneski.

Married to Bertrand Goldberg since 1946, she had two daughters, Lisa and Nan, born in 1950 and 1952, and a son, Geoffrey, born in 1955, who himself is an architect. She lived on the Near North Side of Chicago and was administrator of the Lillian H. Florsheim Foundation for Fine Arts.

Maxim’s was in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, in the basement of Astor Tower, a high-rise building designed by her husband. In 1982, the Chicago Tribune described Maxim’s as “the first designer restaurant.” For its grand opening, a team of eight chefs prepared a meal based on one that had been prepared for George V, the king of England from 1910 to 1936.

(Right) Maxim’s de Paris, located in Astor Tower in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, on opening night in 1963. Photo provided by bertrandgoldberg.org.

“Very quickly,” wrote the Tribune, “those who rated restaurants in the city and the world began praising Maxim’s and sprinkling stars on it.”

Said Bertrand, “She was a woman of enormous quality. She loved fine foods and fine wines and to serve the people who appreciated them.”

Geoffrey Goldberg said in 2009 his mother ended up managing the restaurant, from 1963 to 1982, “by default.”

“They’re about to open. No one’s in charge. Guess who jumps into the mix. She’s in the restaurant business. She’s interviewing chefs. Never had a restaurant in her life.”

But she learned quickly, said Geoffrey. “She had a lot of fun with it.”

She called herself a “saloon keeper,” wrote Geoffrey in 2011. “Widely remembered for her forthright character and good humor, she was a formidable person interested in the larger picture and detail. Her savvy and straightforwardness served as a real-world compass to her more exploratory husband.”

Written by Steven Dahlman
Presented for nonprofit educational purposes

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