2016 Architecture & Finance eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.) bulletin
Architecture & Finance
Mar 28, 2023
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eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.)
bulletin
ISSN 2219-0643
2bulletin | 2016
contents Headquarters building of Norges Bank 89 The Central Bank of Norway 89 Historical quarters of Bank Handlowy w Warszawie SA 91 Polish central banks. An architectural overview 95 The headquarters of Banco de Portugal. A long way 97 Caixa Geral de Depósitos 101 Sustainable architecture 101 The headquarters of the National Bank of Romania. 105 History and architecture 105 The Central Bank of the Russian Federation 12 Neglinnaya Street, Moscow 110 Edifice of the National Bank of Serbia 112 Buildings of central banks in Slovakia in historical perspective 115 Architecture of BBVA. The unique buildings of San Nicolás and Gran Vía 12 in Bilbao 119 A history of the headquarters of Banco Santander 123 The Banco de España building. 1882-2006 127 The Riksbank Building 130 SEB’s building at Kungsträdgårdsgatan celebrates 100 Years 132 Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd at Rue De La Corraterie 133 The Bank for International Settlements 134 in Basel and its landmark buildings¹ 134 To beautify and ornament Zurich. 136 Credit Suisse’s head office on Paradeplatz 136 Architecture for Raiffeisen. Every bank building is unique 139 The Swiss National Bank’s head office in Zurich. 141 A new feature on the city’s familiar skyline 141 A courtly home. Münzhof, UBS’s head office 146 Making and Meaning of a Versicherungs-Palast.The historical headquar- ters of Zurick Insurance Company 149 Unpopular icon of the 1960s. The headquarters of de Nederlandsche Bank in Amsterdam 153 The Dutch architect Berlage and Nationale-Nederlanden 157 Property, finance and architecture. The Imperial Ottoman Bank’s branch buildings 159 bank’s architectural approach. 164 Three headquarters buildings 164 Underneath the Bank of England 167 Barings and its buildings 170 Banking on its own architects. National Provincial Bank in the interwar years 172 A Solid Foundation. 176 The St. Louis Fed’s Building 176 Architecture of a venerable institution. 178
Contents From Florence to Foster. The financial services and their buildings 8 Bank Austria’s historic headquarters in Vienna 14 Space adventure. Moving to new headquarters is a test for Erste Group’s corporate culture 16 Oesterreichische Nationalbank 200 years of architecture 18 The architectural history of the National Bank of Belgium 22 The Croatian National Bank in the Zagreb Stock Exchange building 26 The Bank of Cyprus building within the medieval walls of Lefkosia 29 From the late sixties to the 21st century. The two central buildings of the Limassol Co-operative Savings Bank 31 The ivnostenská Banka building 34 Bank of Finland head office 36 The three lives of Hôtel Gaillard 38 The BNP Paribas Mile 40 An overview of BNP Paribas landmarks in Paris’s historic financial quarter 40 Crédit Agricole 44 Commerzbank and Frankfurt am Main 48 Taunusanlage 12, Frankfurt am Main More than just steel and concrete 51 The Deutsche Bundesbank. Its Architecture and Art 53 The new ECB premises. Architecture and design 56 Metzler Bank in Frankfurt/Main: Festina lente. Only five headquarter locations in over 340 years 58 Sal. Oppenheim Head Office in Cologne 61 Banks in Leipzig 64 The main building of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank 66 1893. A new home for the central bank. 69 The Bank of Italy’s head office in Via Nazionale 69 The historical premises of the Opere Pie di San Paolo in Turin 73 Generali’s real estate between the end of the XIX century and the Great War 75 The historical headquarters 75 How the historical archives of large banking groups manage architectur- al heritage. The case of Intesa Sanpaolo 79 Naples Palazzo Ricca. A bank since 1616 81 The UniCredit headquarters in Milan 83 The Banque Centrale du Luxembourg 87
DESIGN
KEY TITLE
EDITORS
Carmen Hofmann, Gabriella Massaglia eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.) Hanauer Landstrasse 126 -128, D-60314 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
LANGUAGE EDITOR
Dear colleagues and friends,
Most financial institutions’ buildings are landmarks. Placed in the heart of city centres, they occupy prominent spaces in our urban environments. They are built to last.
‘Built on striking locations by famed architects using the lat- est techniques, they were also seen as a highly distinctive architectural expression that could show off the modernity of the bank.’1
As we will see in this edition, many institutions are built like palaces with features that include elegant facades, grand stairways, marble sculptures of allegorical figures and cathe- dral-like groined arches. They follow the ideals of Italian Renaissance or Historical Romanticism.
One example is Zurich Insurance’s building: ‘The building ful- fils its purpose of housing the headquarters of a great and successful company. The massive overall structure, together with the palace-like features assembled in the middle broad- cast seriousness, wealth and power. These qualities are of special importance for an insurance company that basically trades in trust: the promise to pay significant sums of money sometime in the future.’ 2
Financial buildings – central bank buildings (which do hold the gold reserve of their respective countries) in particular – often reflect the idea of strength, stability and continui- ty. More than that, they are supposed to endure and resist financial and other crises.
‘Despite the tumultuous decades that followed crises, upheavals and wars, social revolution, political and econom- ic discontinuities, the National Bank’s building has remained one of the rare edifices whose original appearance and pur- pose has been well preserved.3
As a matter of course these ideals and perceptions differ amongst regions and change over time – sometimes there is a mixing of the old and the new. This is the case in the Neth- erlands, where, in the 1960s, it was thought that: ‘a bank that issues and circulates money on behalf of the government should not be too grand or ostentatious’.4
The Swiss National Bank’s view about their building is that it
1 Christiane de Fleurieu. The BNP Paribas Mile 2 Christofer Stadlin. The Making and Meaning of a ’Versicherungs
Palast’. 3 Sonja Jerkovic, Sasa Ilic and Vladimir Bulajvic. Edifice of the National
Bank of Serbia. 4 Gert Eijkelboom. Unpopular icon oft he 1960s. The headquaters of the
Nederlandsche Bank.
is: ‘the compromise of tradition and modernity, functionali- ty and monumentality, austerity and adornment, and even manages to blend features of the Italian Renaissance with the hipped roof commonly found in northern Europe … this style, typical of the era, offered cultural orientation in an age of uncertainty’.5
It is interesting to see how the buildings presented in this col- lection reflect the time they where built in, the corporate gov- ernance structure and commonly shared values of societies and citizens. Further, the nuanced differences of national ide- als are strikingly obvious almost everywhere. For example, the German Bundesbank is built in a ‘brutal style: an honest architecture.’6 It seems impossible to imagine how German values could be better reflected. Of course these statements only go so far before they become their own cliché. But as we all know, clichés come from somewhere – there may be a grain of truth. ‘Craftsmanship and precision (as expressed in the building of the Swiss National Bank) embody the core facets of Swiss national identity.’7 Isn’t that what we all would consider ‘Swiss’?
Financial Buildings mirror an important aspect of urban envi- ronments. Moreover, they are closely linked to the urban and economic development of cities and countries. The post-war mindset of innovation that dominated the optimistic 1950s and 60s - when Europe was rebuilt after the war- is reflect- ed in the buildings created at the time. Likewise, the urban development of financial centres like Zurich, London and Frankfurt is inseparably associated with the construction
5 Evelyn Ingold. The Swiss National Bank’s head office in Zurich: a new feature on the city’s amiliar skyline.
6 Rolf Herget. Die Deutsche Bundesbank. It’s architecture and art. 7 Evelyn Ingold..
EDITORIAL
works financed by the same industry.
There was a clear trend during the 1980s to mix the ideals of strength and stability one would expect from an institution that trades in trust with the realization that dynamism and flexibility are key factors for success in this business as well – and hence these values need to be associated with the insti- tutions’ domicile.
There are so many particularities to be discovered, like the (intentional or coincidental) choice of location: for instance, the European Central Bank is located exactly opposite of where all other financial institutions are based along the riv- er Main - or the fact that Rothschild’s headquarters always have been (and probably always will be) in the same spot in St. Swithin’s Lane.
And of course, the glory is not only meant for the clients and those who see the complexes from the outside: ‘When all the brilliant business results the company regularly achieves are taken into account, one involuntarily develops the wish to become an employee and maybe even spend a lifetime under the protecting roof of the insurance palace.’8 Palaces are meant to impress citizens and customers. However, they should also awaken pride in employees as well as a desire to be there.
Corporate architecture is corporate identity. Corporate archi- tecture reflects corporate governance as well as the needs and changes in society. Aiming at prestige, grandeur, conti- nuity and solidity would no longer be justifiable in the 21st century. The focus in architecture has now shifted towards social awareness, environmental responsibility, sustainable initiatives, staff well-being and positive interaction with local communities.
Some institutions are developing this approach even more progressively by creating modular structures and open pub- lic spaces and gardens (e.g. Norges Bank) or ‘Campus’ build- ings (e.g. Crédit Agricole). High tech companies seem to have paved the way in this regard by developing innovative mod- els of architecture in which the blurring of lines between work and leisure, duty and ‘fun’, outside and inside, the nat- ural and the artificial is the norm.
What do these developments tell us about the way the finan- cial sector is functioning and being governed – do they indi- cate anything in this respect at all? Do national buildings reflect national identities and variations of modern capi- talism? And, if so, which values are shared and which are regional and how do they change over time?
Is the function of finance reflected in the form of its institu- tions’ edifices? Can we determine whether a company runs
8 Christopher Stadlin. The Making and Meaning of a ’Versicherungs Palast’.
its business in an open, transparent and integrated way from the way in which its headquarters are presented to the wider public and integrated into the urban landscape?
Which stories can buildings’ transformations tell about the changes and renewals of countries and places over time?
This volume aims to be a starting point. We want to start a collection of cases and stories of financial institutions – in this case, European financial institutions – in order to get a sense of the bigger picture: how does finance change the way we work? How does finance change the way we live? Or is it occasionally the other way around: can the way we live transform finance?
eabh plans to do a second, and possibly third, edition with the help of its new, old and potential member institutions. Thereafter, it is planned that selected case studies and more conceptual research on the topic will follow. We as an Asso- ciation are most grateful to all the individuals, teams and institutions that have contributed with their knowledge in written word and imagery. All suggestions and recommenda- tions are very welcome and I would like to encourage every- one with a particular interesting case study in mind (whether it concerns institutions, a particular country, an époque, or more generally) to get in touch with eabh at: [email protected].
Personally, first and foremost, I would like to thank my col- league, Gabriella Massaglia, for being the person, who had this great idea, encouraged everyone to contribute and fol- lowed through with infinite dedication and enthusiasm. Fur- ther, my gratitude goes to Hugo Bänziger, who supported the idea with interest and insight from the beginning and last not least, to Jonathan Ercanbrack whose language and content advice has been crucially important for the quality of most of this volume’s content.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue about the architecture of financial institutions.
Yours faithfully
7 bulletin | 2016
B anks are difficult buildings to discuss. On the one hand, they just a building type among so
many others; on the other hand, they are a type which has evolved over cen- turies to accommodate a particu- lar profession, and that is something very rare. Building types are distinguished by the function which they purport to represent, which often means they were designed from the inside outwards. For instance, a school will have class-rooms, a hospital will have wards, a library will have shelving, and so on, and the arrangement of those defining elements will have first claim to the archi- tect’s attention. On the exterior, the task will be to produce a design which labels the building for what it is. There will, of course, be constraints. The project must come with- in budget, meet any stylistic aspirations of the client, and satisfy the rules of the local authority. A successful architect will harmo- nise the appearance of the building with its function, but it may be difficult to reflect the external styling in the internal disposition. Designing banks, however, has tradi- tionally been different. Often a handsome façade gives way to an opulent banking hall, which is as far as most customers penetrate. This gives the impression that the building was designed from the outside inwards, in so far as the exterior dictates what the interior will look like. The conclusion for many peo- ple, over the years, has been that banks are only too easy to design: that there could be a kind of cloned façade which, give or take the odd column or sculptured panel, would do equally well in London, Paris or Ber- lin. But such a view is simplistic, because it takes no account of the subtlety of banking and the complexity of its past. To design any building successfully, an architect has had
From Florence to Foster. The financial services and their buildings
John Booker
to understand the nature of the business it represented, and in banking that nature was sometimes elusive. It is useful to compare banking with oth- er ancient professions. Skating quickly over the one which Rudyard Kipling called the oldest in the world, perhaps doctors, law- yers and the clergy have the greatest claim to a long descent. But without being disparag- ing about lawyers and doctors, their building types have been relatively uncomplicated. Lawyers have had law courts (at various lev- els of seniority) and the medical profession can boast a range of purpose-built buildings over the last four centuries (e.g. lazzaretto, sanatorium, eye infirmary, general hospi- tal). But such buildings are not ubiquitous
INTRODUCTION
like banks, and they cater for the tribulations of life rather than service its normality. Ironi- cally, churches are much closer to banks as a building type. The lines of descent from God and Mammon have a remarkable similarity. In Europe, the two main religious tradi- tions have been Roman Catholic and Prot- estant and the style of a church is tailored to the degree of embellishment consistent with the doctrine. At one extreme lies the Baroque tradition characterized, for exam- ple, by the rich interiors in churches of the Danube basin, and at the other end is the unadorned simplicity of a Calvinist or Meth- odist chapel. By the same token, there can be churches which are Romanesque, and others that are Gothic, a style which had
John Gibson’s 1867 Southampton branch of National Provincial Bank in about 1910. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc © 2016.
8bulletin | 2016
a virtual grammar of ornamentation all to itself. In the same way, banks in one line of evolution have been grander than others. There have been private banks, merchant banks, savings banks, joint-stock banks, and national banks, and the style suited to one of those divisions might not fit the charac- ter of another. There are even sub-divisions, because the savings banks of Britain were wholly charitable, whereas the Sparkassen in German-speaking countries developed with a commercial function. Also there have been purpose-built little banks and purpose-built big banks and what appears to have been simply a difference in size has usually reflected a diversity of pur- pose. Generally speaking, little banks have represented branches, retail banking, and the customer interface; big banks have stood for head office, in other words the co-ordina- tion of branches, wholesale banking, and all the administrative machinery needed for running a public limited company, a société anonyme, or an aktiengesellschaft. This dis- tinction is usually obvious to the on-looker, but that has not always been so. Earlier purpose-built banks date from an era when the contrast between head office and the branch network did not apply because the latter, if it existed at all, was too
small to influence design. Banks, for reasons of travel, loyalty, confidence and the law (for instance, restrictions on the issue of bank- notes) traded within a small geographical area, with one or a handful of branches (if any) easily accessible from the place where the business originated. Bankers instruct- ed their architects to make each building an individual statement of the solidity of the firm, so no one building was conspicuous- ly smaller or less grand than another. The main expense, however, was reserved for the office where the proprietors met to plan, report and account. The concept of an in-house branch style is relatively modern – although per- haps more historic in England than else- where. The mid-19th century branches of the National Provincial Bank shared a cer- tain affinity of grandeur, thanks to the archi- tect John Gibson, but many could hardly be labelled as small. In the early 20th centu- ry, however, some companies, most notice- ably the Midland Bank, built their minor branches in a consistent and harmonising style, imparting a kind of corporate uniform, almost to the extent that the name on the frieze was irrelevant. A meaningful difference between prem- ises is not, of course, something confined
to banking. Supermarkets, for instance, will have a large head office and smaller out- lets, and there is the same functional dichot- omy between them. Likewise, a chain of do-it-yourself or department stores will oper- ate at two administrative levels, with build- ings to match. But these represent shopping for material goods, whereas a bank markets an abstract commodity, where hard cash is almost a side-line. The retail side of bank- ing (although recognised as a term) does not work in the High Street sense because banks, and for that matter insurance companies, do not market a product to put in the boot of one’s car. The point at which banking began in the history of civilisation is blurred. The Chinese produced bank notes, and other ancient cul- tures from the Middle East to Rome had sys- tems for payments and credit. But the con- sensus is that modern principles derive from the the Italian city states, and indeed the word bank derives from the banco – the counter where transactions were con- ducted. Renaissance bankers, such as the Medici, did not design purpose-built banks because their palazzi were adequate and, more importantly, because they were also merchants and politicans. This multi-ac- tivity characterized banking in Europe over
INTRODUCTION
Town hall at the Dam. The Amsterdamsche Wisselbank was established in 1609 in the house on the right side of the town hall –…
bulletin
ISSN 2219-0643
2bulletin | 2016
contents Headquarters building of Norges Bank 89 The Central Bank of Norway 89 Historical quarters of Bank Handlowy w Warszawie SA 91 Polish central banks. An architectural overview 95 The headquarters of Banco de Portugal. A long way 97 Caixa Geral de Depósitos 101 Sustainable architecture 101 The headquarters of the National Bank of Romania. 105 History and architecture 105 The Central Bank of the Russian Federation 12 Neglinnaya Street, Moscow 110 Edifice of the National Bank of Serbia 112 Buildings of central banks in Slovakia in historical perspective 115 Architecture of BBVA. The unique buildings of San Nicolás and Gran Vía 12 in Bilbao 119 A history of the headquarters of Banco Santander 123 The Banco de España building. 1882-2006 127 The Riksbank Building 130 SEB’s building at Kungsträdgårdsgatan celebrates 100 Years 132 Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd at Rue De La Corraterie 133 The Bank for International Settlements 134 in Basel and its landmark buildings¹ 134 To beautify and ornament Zurich. 136 Credit Suisse’s head office on Paradeplatz 136 Architecture for Raiffeisen. Every bank building is unique 139 The Swiss National Bank’s head office in Zurich. 141 A new feature on the city’s familiar skyline 141 A courtly home. Münzhof, UBS’s head office 146 Making and Meaning of a Versicherungs-Palast.The historical headquar- ters of Zurick Insurance Company 149 Unpopular icon of the 1960s. The headquarters of de Nederlandsche Bank in Amsterdam 153 The Dutch architect Berlage and Nationale-Nederlanden 157 Property, finance and architecture. The Imperial Ottoman Bank’s branch buildings 159 bank’s architectural approach. 164 Three headquarters buildings 164 Underneath the Bank of England 167 Barings and its buildings 170 Banking on its own architects. National Provincial Bank in the interwar years 172 A Solid Foundation. 176 The St. Louis Fed’s Building 176 Architecture of a venerable institution. 178
Contents From Florence to Foster. The financial services and their buildings 8 Bank Austria’s historic headquarters in Vienna 14 Space adventure. Moving to new headquarters is a test for Erste Group’s corporate culture 16 Oesterreichische Nationalbank 200 years of architecture 18 The architectural history of the National Bank of Belgium 22 The Croatian National Bank in the Zagreb Stock Exchange building 26 The Bank of Cyprus building within the medieval walls of Lefkosia 29 From the late sixties to the 21st century. The two central buildings of the Limassol Co-operative Savings Bank 31 The ivnostenská Banka building 34 Bank of Finland head office 36 The three lives of Hôtel Gaillard 38 The BNP Paribas Mile 40 An overview of BNP Paribas landmarks in Paris’s historic financial quarter 40 Crédit Agricole 44 Commerzbank and Frankfurt am Main 48 Taunusanlage 12, Frankfurt am Main More than just steel and concrete 51 The Deutsche Bundesbank. Its Architecture and Art 53 The new ECB premises. Architecture and design 56 Metzler Bank in Frankfurt/Main: Festina lente. Only five headquarter locations in over 340 years 58 Sal. Oppenheim Head Office in Cologne 61 Banks in Leipzig 64 The main building of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank 66 1893. A new home for the central bank. 69 The Bank of Italy’s head office in Via Nazionale 69 The historical premises of the Opere Pie di San Paolo in Turin 73 Generali’s real estate between the end of the XIX century and the Great War 75 The historical headquarters 75 How the historical archives of large banking groups manage architectur- al heritage. The case of Intesa Sanpaolo 79 Naples Palazzo Ricca. A bank since 1616 81 The UniCredit headquarters in Milan 83 The Banque Centrale du Luxembourg 87
DESIGN
KEY TITLE
EDITORS
Carmen Hofmann, Gabriella Massaglia eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.) Hanauer Landstrasse 126 -128, D-60314 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
LANGUAGE EDITOR
Dear colleagues and friends,
Most financial institutions’ buildings are landmarks. Placed in the heart of city centres, they occupy prominent spaces in our urban environments. They are built to last.
‘Built on striking locations by famed architects using the lat- est techniques, they were also seen as a highly distinctive architectural expression that could show off the modernity of the bank.’1
As we will see in this edition, many institutions are built like palaces with features that include elegant facades, grand stairways, marble sculptures of allegorical figures and cathe- dral-like groined arches. They follow the ideals of Italian Renaissance or Historical Romanticism.
One example is Zurich Insurance’s building: ‘The building ful- fils its purpose of housing the headquarters of a great and successful company. The massive overall structure, together with the palace-like features assembled in the middle broad- cast seriousness, wealth and power. These qualities are of special importance for an insurance company that basically trades in trust: the promise to pay significant sums of money sometime in the future.’ 2
Financial buildings – central bank buildings (which do hold the gold reserve of their respective countries) in particular – often reflect the idea of strength, stability and continui- ty. More than that, they are supposed to endure and resist financial and other crises.
‘Despite the tumultuous decades that followed crises, upheavals and wars, social revolution, political and econom- ic discontinuities, the National Bank’s building has remained one of the rare edifices whose original appearance and pur- pose has been well preserved.3
As a matter of course these ideals and perceptions differ amongst regions and change over time – sometimes there is a mixing of the old and the new. This is the case in the Neth- erlands, where, in the 1960s, it was thought that: ‘a bank that issues and circulates money on behalf of the government should not be too grand or ostentatious’.4
The Swiss National Bank’s view about their building is that it
1 Christiane de Fleurieu. The BNP Paribas Mile 2 Christofer Stadlin. The Making and Meaning of a ’Versicherungs
Palast’. 3 Sonja Jerkovic, Sasa Ilic and Vladimir Bulajvic. Edifice of the National
Bank of Serbia. 4 Gert Eijkelboom. Unpopular icon oft he 1960s. The headquaters of the
Nederlandsche Bank.
is: ‘the compromise of tradition and modernity, functionali- ty and monumentality, austerity and adornment, and even manages to blend features of the Italian Renaissance with the hipped roof commonly found in northern Europe … this style, typical of the era, offered cultural orientation in an age of uncertainty’.5
It is interesting to see how the buildings presented in this col- lection reflect the time they where built in, the corporate gov- ernance structure and commonly shared values of societies and citizens. Further, the nuanced differences of national ide- als are strikingly obvious almost everywhere. For example, the German Bundesbank is built in a ‘brutal style: an honest architecture.’6 It seems impossible to imagine how German values could be better reflected. Of course these statements only go so far before they become their own cliché. But as we all know, clichés come from somewhere – there may be a grain of truth. ‘Craftsmanship and precision (as expressed in the building of the Swiss National Bank) embody the core facets of Swiss national identity.’7 Isn’t that what we all would consider ‘Swiss’?
Financial Buildings mirror an important aspect of urban envi- ronments. Moreover, they are closely linked to the urban and economic development of cities and countries. The post-war mindset of innovation that dominated the optimistic 1950s and 60s - when Europe was rebuilt after the war- is reflect- ed in the buildings created at the time. Likewise, the urban development of financial centres like Zurich, London and Frankfurt is inseparably associated with the construction
5 Evelyn Ingold. The Swiss National Bank’s head office in Zurich: a new feature on the city’s amiliar skyline.
6 Rolf Herget. Die Deutsche Bundesbank. It’s architecture and art. 7 Evelyn Ingold..
EDITORIAL
works financed by the same industry.
There was a clear trend during the 1980s to mix the ideals of strength and stability one would expect from an institution that trades in trust with the realization that dynamism and flexibility are key factors for success in this business as well – and hence these values need to be associated with the insti- tutions’ domicile.
There are so many particularities to be discovered, like the (intentional or coincidental) choice of location: for instance, the European Central Bank is located exactly opposite of where all other financial institutions are based along the riv- er Main - or the fact that Rothschild’s headquarters always have been (and probably always will be) in the same spot in St. Swithin’s Lane.
And of course, the glory is not only meant for the clients and those who see the complexes from the outside: ‘When all the brilliant business results the company regularly achieves are taken into account, one involuntarily develops the wish to become an employee and maybe even spend a lifetime under the protecting roof of the insurance palace.’8 Palaces are meant to impress citizens and customers. However, they should also awaken pride in employees as well as a desire to be there.
Corporate architecture is corporate identity. Corporate archi- tecture reflects corporate governance as well as the needs and changes in society. Aiming at prestige, grandeur, conti- nuity and solidity would no longer be justifiable in the 21st century. The focus in architecture has now shifted towards social awareness, environmental responsibility, sustainable initiatives, staff well-being and positive interaction with local communities.
Some institutions are developing this approach even more progressively by creating modular structures and open pub- lic spaces and gardens (e.g. Norges Bank) or ‘Campus’ build- ings (e.g. Crédit Agricole). High tech companies seem to have paved the way in this regard by developing innovative mod- els of architecture in which the blurring of lines between work and leisure, duty and ‘fun’, outside and inside, the nat- ural and the artificial is the norm.
What do these developments tell us about the way the finan- cial sector is functioning and being governed – do they indi- cate anything in this respect at all? Do national buildings reflect national identities and variations of modern capi- talism? And, if so, which values are shared and which are regional and how do they change over time?
Is the function of finance reflected in the form of its institu- tions’ edifices? Can we determine whether a company runs
8 Christopher Stadlin. The Making and Meaning of a ’Versicherungs Palast’.
its business in an open, transparent and integrated way from the way in which its headquarters are presented to the wider public and integrated into the urban landscape?
Which stories can buildings’ transformations tell about the changes and renewals of countries and places over time?
This volume aims to be a starting point. We want to start a collection of cases and stories of financial institutions – in this case, European financial institutions – in order to get a sense of the bigger picture: how does finance change the way we work? How does finance change the way we live? Or is it occasionally the other way around: can the way we live transform finance?
eabh plans to do a second, and possibly third, edition with the help of its new, old and potential member institutions. Thereafter, it is planned that selected case studies and more conceptual research on the topic will follow. We as an Asso- ciation are most grateful to all the individuals, teams and institutions that have contributed with their knowledge in written word and imagery. All suggestions and recommenda- tions are very welcome and I would like to encourage every- one with a particular interesting case study in mind (whether it concerns institutions, a particular country, an époque, or more generally) to get in touch with eabh at: [email protected].
Personally, first and foremost, I would like to thank my col- league, Gabriella Massaglia, for being the person, who had this great idea, encouraged everyone to contribute and fol- lowed through with infinite dedication and enthusiasm. Fur- ther, my gratitude goes to Hugo Bänziger, who supported the idea with interest and insight from the beginning and last not least, to Jonathan Ercanbrack whose language and content advice has been crucially important for the quality of most of this volume’s content.
I hope you enjoy reading this issue about the architecture of financial institutions.
Yours faithfully
7 bulletin | 2016
B anks are difficult buildings to discuss. On the one hand, they just a building type among so
many others; on the other hand, they are a type which has evolved over cen- turies to accommodate a particu- lar profession, and that is something very rare. Building types are distinguished by the function which they purport to represent, which often means they were designed from the inside outwards. For instance, a school will have class-rooms, a hospital will have wards, a library will have shelving, and so on, and the arrangement of those defining elements will have first claim to the archi- tect’s attention. On the exterior, the task will be to produce a design which labels the building for what it is. There will, of course, be constraints. The project must come with- in budget, meet any stylistic aspirations of the client, and satisfy the rules of the local authority. A successful architect will harmo- nise the appearance of the building with its function, but it may be difficult to reflect the external styling in the internal disposition. Designing banks, however, has tradi- tionally been different. Often a handsome façade gives way to an opulent banking hall, which is as far as most customers penetrate. This gives the impression that the building was designed from the outside inwards, in so far as the exterior dictates what the interior will look like. The conclusion for many peo- ple, over the years, has been that banks are only too easy to design: that there could be a kind of cloned façade which, give or take the odd column or sculptured panel, would do equally well in London, Paris or Ber- lin. But such a view is simplistic, because it takes no account of the subtlety of banking and the complexity of its past. To design any building successfully, an architect has had
From Florence to Foster. The financial services and their buildings
John Booker
to understand the nature of the business it represented, and in banking that nature was sometimes elusive. It is useful to compare banking with oth- er ancient professions. Skating quickly over the one which Rudyard Kipling called the oldest in the world, perhaps doctors, law- yers and the clergy have the greatest claim to a long descent. But without being disparag- ing about lawyers and doctors, their building types have been relatively uncomplicated. Lawyers have had law courts (at various lev- els of seniority) and the medical profession can boast a range of purpose-built buildings over the last four centuries (e.g. lazzaretto, sanatorium, eye infirmary, general hospi- tal). But such buildings are not ubiquitous
INTRODUCTION
like banks, and they cater for the tribulations of life rather than service its normality. Ironi- cally, churches are much closer to banks as a building type. The lines of descent from God and Mammon have a remarkable similarity. In Europe, the two main religious tradi- tions have been Roman Catholic and Prot- estant and the style of a church is tailored to the degree of embellishment consistent with the doctrine. At one extreme lies the Baroque tradition characterized, for exam- ple, by the rich interiors in churches of the Danube basin, and at the other end is the unadorned simplicity of a Calvinist or Meth- odist chapel. By the same token, there can be churches which are Romanesque, and others that are Gothic, a style which had
John Gibson’s 1867 Southampton branch of National Provincial Bank in about 1910. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc © 2016.
8bulletin | 2016
a virtual grammar of ornamentation all to itself. In the same way, banks in one line of evolution have been grander than others. There have been private banks, merchant banks, savings banks, joint-stock banks, and national banks, and the style suited to one of those divisions might not fit the charac- ter of another. There are even sub-divisions, because the savings banks of Britain were wholly charitable, whereas the Sparkassen in German-speaking countries developed with a commercial function. Also there have been purpose-built little banks and purpose-built big banks and what appears to have been simply a difference in size has usually reflected a diversity of pur- pose. Generally speaking, little banks have represented branches, retail banking, and the customer interface; big banks have stood for head office, in other words the co-ordina- tion of branches, wholesale banking, and all the administrative machinery needed for running a public limited company, a société anonyme, or an aktiengesellschaft. This dis- tinction is usually obvious to the on-looker, but that has not always been so. Earlier purpose-built banks date from an era when the contrast between head office and the branch network did not apply because the latter, if it existed at all, was too
small to influence design. Banks, for reasons of travel, loyalty, confidence and the law (for instance, restrictions on the issue of bank- notes) traded within a small geographical area, with one or a handful of branches (if any) easily accessible from the place where the business originated. Bankers instruct- ed their architects to make each building an individual statement of the solidity of the firm, so no one building was conspicuous- ly smaller or less grand than another. The main expense, however, was reserved for the office where the proprietors met to plan, report and account. The concept of an in-house branch style is relatively modern – although per- haps more historic in England than else- where. The mid-19th century branches of the National Provincial Bank shared a cer- tain affinity of grandeur, thanks to the archi- tect John Gibson, but many could hardly be labelled as small. In the early 20th centu- ry, however, some companies, most notice- ably the Midland Bank, built their minor branches in a consistent and harmonising style, imparting a kind of corporate uniform, almost to the extent that the name on the frieze was irrelevant. A meaningful difference between prem- ises is not, of course, something confined
to banking. Supermarkets, for instance, will have a large head office and smaller out- lets, and there is the same functional dichot- omy between them. Likewise, a chain of do-it-yourself or department stores will oper- ate at two administrative levels, with build- ings to match. But these represent shopping for material goods, whereas a bank markets an abstract commodity, where hard cash is almost a side-line. The retail side of bank- ing (although recognised as a term) does not work in the High Street sense because banks, and for that matter insurance companies, do not market a product to put in the boot of one’s car. The point at which banking began in the history of civilisation is blurred. The Chinese produced bank notes, and other ancient cul- tures from the Middle East to Rome had sys- tems for payments and credit. But the con- sensus is that modern principles derive from the the Italian city states, and indeed the word bank derives from the banco – the counter where transactions were con- ducted. Renaissance bankers, such as the Medici, did not design purpose-built banks because their palazzi were adequate and, more importantly, because they were also merchants and politicans. This multi-ac- tivity characterized banking in Europe over
INTRODUCTION
Town hall at the Dam. The Amsterdamsche Wisselbank was established in 1609 in the house on the right side of the town hall –…
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