Watford, UK

Erno Goldfinger (1961)

Hungarian-born Erno Goldfinger first deployed his tell-tale coloured glass slits at Watford’s Hille House, an office and factory he built between 1959-61. It wasn’t a chance collaboration : the Hille furniture company has an illustrious history in modernist furniture design – including the signature Polyside and Hille chairs, and not least the very Bond-villainy 4-4000 Easy Chair. Many of us will have used their Toro or Woodro benches around London, especially in the Tube – so you’d do well to think of Erno Goldfinger next time you take a seat in one of those !