Ernst Ludwig Freud - Biography

Ernst Ludwig Freud (6 April 1892 in Vienna – 7 April 1970 in London) was an Austrian architect and the youngest son of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his German-born wife Martha Bernays.

Ernst Freud established his practice in Berlin in 1920 where a large number of his clients were Doctors. The majority of his commissions were for houses and consulting rooms and he worked in an Art Deco style but by 1930 had begun to work in a modern style showing the influence of Mies van der Rohe. Examples of this include a Cigarette Factory in Berlin and a house and consulting room for Dr. Frank in Potsdam.

In 1933 with the rise to power of the Nazis, Ernst Freud left Berlin for London where he settled in St. John's Wood. He secured a number of commissions for private houses and blocks of flats around Hampstead including the notable Frognal Close in 1938, Belvedere Court, Lyttelton Road and a consulting room for Melanie Klein. In 1938 his father Sigmund and younger sister Anna Freud joined Ernst in London and moved into a house in Hampstead that Ernst remodelled including the creation of a glazed garden room. The house today is the Freud Museum.

Freud and his wife had three sons - Stephen Gabriel Freud, the politician and broadcaster Clement Freud and the painter Lucian Freud. Freud was an atheist.