The Office

Bertrand Goldberg maintained an office throughout his career, with his firm, Bertrand Goldberg Associates, in operation from 1952 until 1997.

BGA Staff, 1987. Bertrand Goldberg can be seen in the center of the first row. Two of Bertrand Goldberg’s close associates are also present in the front row, Dick Binfield on his right and Ben Honda on the far right of the image.

From 1937 until 1950 Goldberg worked primarily alone. For a few years in the early 1950s, Goldberg partnered with Leland Atwood, with the office of Bertrand Goldberg Associates (BGA) established shortly thereafter in 1952. Early promotional material emphasized the offices strengths in engineering, technological innovation, and construction management.

When work began on Marina City, the modest office expanded, growing to more than thirty people in the early 1960s. At that time, Goldberg hired the key staff members, Ed Center, Dick Binfield, Ben Honda, and Al Goers, who remained with him for many years thereafter as the core of his firm. Structural engineering was added to the office, first with Bert Weinberg, and later with chief engineers Frank Kornacker and Ludwig Steiner.

The office moved into Marina City in 1963, and by the 1970s BGA had offices in Boston and briefly in Palo Alto, California. In the 1970s BGA had more than one hundred people, with full engineering in-house, and included a separate computer-focused entity, creating its own software.

Into the 1980s, BGA focused on the design and construction of numerous large scale healthcare and educational facilities. Of the other more innovative urban projects, such as Night World, only River City was built. BGA’s last major built work, Wright College, was completed in 1992.

Bertrand Goldberg Associates was closed after Goldberg’s decease in 1997.

Goldberg (at right) and colleagues with a full-size mockup of Marina City, 1962. Notice the photomontage of a tower on the right.