| EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK, GERMANY, FRANKFURT AM MAIN, 2003 |
By OMA© All rights reserved
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“Public buildings are conveyors of meaning and this one in particular will symbolize the European Union and its currency, the Euro. We expect high quality designs which will provide Europe with an icon of modern architecture.” The European Central Bank is a bank without tradition, presiding over a currency with no history. The Euro is the only currency not backed by a state. Like Europe itself, the ECB is modern by default, simply because it is unprecedented in its effort. Conceiving a building for the European Central Bank is like flying blind: venturing into a domain with no clear references. So far the question of a European style or iconography to accommodate Europe’s increasing integration has the usual habitat of business: a high rise tower clad in beige marble with brown mirror glass windows. Besides the building’s name “Eurotower”, no effort has been made to present the bank as one of the symbols of a unified Europe. There is little that sets the ECB apart from Frankfurt’s other 400 banks. Eurotower neatly blends in with the 17 other high-rises that have crossed the 100-meter barrier to form the skyline of “the city” of Frankfurt. In height it is casually surpassed by the German Commerzbank. So far the identity of the ECB has successfully been submerged into the overall ambition of Frankfurt to be a financial center. The move to the site of the Grossmarkthalle located in Frankfurt’s Ostend marks a significant shift: A new purpose built accommodation, set apart from the skyline of Frankfurt’s financial district, is an endorsement of the ECB’s importance and marks an important step in the emancipation as a European Insititution. From quietly performing its tasks for years the ECB will suddenly find itself in full limelight. |
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