Ernest Gindper 

Architect

Born in Saint Petersburg on 25 October 1894; died in Shanghai on 7 October, 1943, of tuberculosis.

Son of a well-known metal smelting plant owner, Leopold Woldemar Waldemar Joseph Hindper, based in Luga. Ernest Gindper arrived in Shanghai around 1918, together with his younger brother Alfred. The brother soon joined the SMC Power Department and stayed with it until 1935. 

Ernest Gindper was employed at the American architecture firm of Elliott Hazzard from the moment of its founding in 1923; he stayed with the firm for 8 years. Among the studio’s first projects were the plans of the US Consulate in Amoy and in Shanghai. Before the end of the decade the studio constructed the Columbia Country Club on Great Western Road, Foreign YMCA and CUA Building on Bubbling Well Road, the Shanghai Power Co. on Nanking Road, Midland Hotel and Strand Theatre on Ningpo Road, Brookside Apartments on Avenue Haig, Lieu Ong Kee Building on Szechuen Road and a residence on the corner of Route Pere Huc and Boissezon. The plans for a new Standard Oil Building on the corner of Avenue Edward and Szechuen Road and an apartment house for Mr. Toeg on Yu Yuen Road appear to have been left unrealized.

In 1931–1940, Gindper worked as an architect at Algar and Co., alongside his colleague Nicolas Sokolovsky. The firm’s projects during that decade included: Northend Apartments (1933) and Northend Court (1935), on North Szechuen Road; a building adjacent to Great Shanghai Hotel on Avenue Edward VII, and another three-story building on Rue Tourane, near Avenue Edward VII (1933);

In 1940, together with N. N. Emanoff Gindper founded the Associated Architects 联益建筑公. The studio authored several art deco buildings – the Friendship Apartments (1941), the modernist villa on Route Ferguson (1941) and T. Z. Woo's residence on Bubbling Well Road (1942). Another partner in the firm was C. Malinovsky.

In the mid-1930s, Gindper acted as a treasurer of the Russian Engineers’ Society. He was an avid collector of stamps. He lived at 59 Route Boissezon.

Gindper was first married to Augusta Marks, of Finnish origin, and later to Galina Fedorovna Gindper, née Pedenko, from Blagoveschensk, b. 1902. His daughters Valerie (b. 1926) and Azella (b. 1938), born in Shanghai, later moved to Estonia and Canada, respectively.