Works: By Type

Early in his career, Goldberg worked on a number of small residential projects, starting with the Higginson House in 1934. The modestly-sized, modernist homes of his early career often included imaginative use of materials and technology and in many cases custom furniture and fixtures. By the mid-1950s, his private residential work came mostly to an end, as the firm began work on larger-scale projects.

A desire to improve urban living informed the design of all Goldberg’s multi-family residences - with Marina City as his defining example. Built as a "city within a city", it combined residential apartments, recreational activities, entertainment, and commercial offices into one complex. This was a turning point that began his firm's movement towards larger projects, including River City; an extension of many of these same ideas. While his work was primarily addressed to the middle class, the needs of lower-income residents were the focus of projects at Drexel and Raymond Hilliard Homes.

Beginning in the 1960's, Bertrand Goldberg Associates received many commissions for educational and health care facilities. Nine major new hospitals were designed and built, and two entire college campuses were also completed - for Health Sciences Center and Wright College. In these projects, the firm was able to implement new solutions to long established problems by assuming responsibility for not only architecture, but also programming, planning, and engineering.

Goldberg's early interest in industrial design and manufacturing would inform his later work in large-scale systems. An experiment in automobile design was followed by prefabricated housing and then mobile structures built for the U.S. military in World War II. After the war, his interest in prefabrication continued until the 1950's, when his unused design for a plywood boxcar evolved into modular housing units.

Committed to all design disciplines, Goldberg designed furniture to accompany his early residential projects. He also designed several public exhibitions or promotional displays as inventive means to demonstrate and promote his projects. Later, this interest in spectacle was revisited through several unbuilt but fantastical projects including a futuristic night-time entertainment center and a proposal for a floating World's Fair.

Committed to all design disciplines, Goldberg designed furniture to accompany his early residential projects. He also designed several public exhibitions or promotional displays as inventive means to demonstrate and promote his projects. Later, this interest in spectacle was revisited through several unbuilt but fantastical projects including a futuristic night-time entertainment center and a proposal for a floating World's Fair.

From a mobile ice-cream store on wheels, to large auditoriums and high-rise office buildings, Goldberg's commercial projects covered a wide spectrum of both scale and purpose. Nonetheless, each typically showcased a distinctive approach to problem solving through innovative use of materials and form.