Haggerston Girls' School

Haggerston Girls' School, Weymouth Terrace, Hackney

A secondary school designed in 1962 and built between 1964 and 1967 by Erno Goldfinger for the London County Council, which became the Inner London Education Authority after 1965. The building is constructed of reinforced concrete frame with concrete and brick infill.

The scheme comprises three linked blocks arranged around a central teaching spine. The western entrance block contains an assembly hall, music facilities and staff accommodation. The central block is a teaching range incorporating a first-floor library. The eastern block houses gymnasia. The floor slabs are expressed as continuous shallow bands with bush-hammered finish, while the exposed columns are broad and smooth-faced, incorporating service ducts. High concrete parapets run across all blocks.

The teaching block spans twelve main bays across three storeys with two additional rooftop classrooms and a central water tank between them. Each bay contains four square windows per storey, interrupted by three staircases with full-height metal glazing and doors at their base. A concrete parapet rail, similar to those formerly at Goldfinger's listed Trellick and Balfron Towers, runs the length of the block. At the southern end of the western elevation, projecting bays with larger windows and opening louvres contain the library and specialist teaching areas. Corresponding projecting rooms on the eastern facade at the northern end house year rooms. The facades maintain a fine harmony despite their initial appearance of toughness.

Internal non-load-bearing walls are plastered throughout, with a central spinal corridor served by brick paviours and some original doors. Fire doors are set in vertical timber screens. Granolithic floors remain, mostly covered. Original science benches survive in several teaching rooms, and some classrooms retain built-in radio sets and fitted cupboards. A single-storey kitchen and cafeteria addition was made in 2002 and is not of special interest.

The entrance block features full-height metal glazing over double doors on either side, lighting a broad central corridor. Elevations are clad in brick with concrete cornices. Glazing to the southern elevation lights music rooms and offices. Large concrete water spouts project from the cornice and are met below by triangular concrete features. A circular fire escape rises from the upper offices.

The interior upper level has coffered ceilings on a 2 feet 9 inches grid. The corridor has pavioured floors and a timber ceiling link. A timber screen of stout vertical members separates the assembly hall, accessed via double doors in boldly expressed surrounds. The hall contains a stage with timber surround and timber floor. The rear brick wall is angled with cut brick to reduce acoustic reverberation and incorporates a timber sound box. Rehearsal cells adjoin the hall. Opposite are the main music rooms, one with a stepped floor for orchestra. Above the music rooms is a gallery with timber handrail, reached via a corner staircase and serving staff rooms. The main entrance is denoted by projecting walls that lead to the street, with black steel gates.

The gymnasium block occupies two levels. The lower sports hall was formerly open at the sides and retains a spectator area. To the side is a former common room, now a learning resource centre, with timber-lined walls, built-in timber banking and a kitchen counter. Concrete balustrades on the staircase lead via changing areas to the upper level, which contains two gymnasia lit by continuous clerestory glazing. A circular fire escape rises from a rear balcony between the two gymnasia. Low retaining walls to the side define play areas and form an integral part of the composition.

The school opened in January 1966 when the teaching range was completed and was finished in phases thereafter.

Erno Goldfinger (1902–87) was born in Budapest and studied architecture in Vienna and Paris under Auguste Perret, one of the first architects to develop reinforced concrete aesthetically. Perret's buildings of the 1920s and 1930s are rigorously classical and express their concrete structure clearly. This influence is evident at Haggerston School, where the elevations follow the Golden Section, a mathematical proportion owing considerably to Perret's inspiration. Goldfinger combined Perret's influence with detailing and plan-forms derived from Le Corbusier, having known both men personally. His work is unique in Britain in this synthesis. He encouraged classical rigour in the modernism of younger English architects, many of whom worked in his office. His mature style in the late 1950s and 1960s kept him abreast of younger practitioners. He was some twenty years older than fellow exhibitors at This is Tomorrow, the 1956 Whitechapel Gallery exhibition, yet this is not readily apparent in his work. His practice continued to develop until inflation and recession in the 1970s brought it to an end.

When Goldfinger moved to England in 1934 with his wife Ursula Blackwell, early commissions included a nursery school (never built) and school furniture for small children. Between 1950 and 1951 he built two small primary schools in Hammersmith and Wandsworth, both listed. Haggerston School was his only secondary school, and the progression of buildings for increasingly older children corresponds with his own stylistic development. It is the only school demonstrating his mature style. The principal spaces are among Goldfinger's boldest and most handsome public interiors, and in completeness and interest compare with his listed housing in Kensington and Tower Hamlets.