bulletin Architecture & Finance 2019/20 eabh (The European Association for Banking and Financial History e.V.) Image: Bank of Canada and Museum entrance. 29 Sept 2017. Photo: doublespace bulletin Architecture & Finance 2019/20 www.bankinghistory.org ISSN 2219-0643 bulletin | 2019/20 3 ATHENS TO NEW YORK Athens to New York Carmen Hofmann his article provides the long view of financial architecture reaching from T antiquity to the present day, and focussing on the most important neo-classi- cal financial buildings in New York. In his introduction to the first edition of the eabh series on architecture and finance John Booker wrote: ‘Banks are just a build- ing type among so many others – on the one hand, on the other hand however, they are a type which has evolved over centuries to accommodate a particular profession, and that is something very rare.’1 Considering the evolution of financial buildings’ architecture is worthwhile: banks offer a distinctive plat- form for architectural expression. The style of financial buildings such as banks, exchanges, insurance companies has not only been influenced by regional factors, and by the philosophical trends and charac- Picture 1: Parthenon temple of Acropolis, 447, BC, Athens, Greece teristic of the period, but by the type of bank they have housed: whether public, private, or commercial; whether a merchant, national, Neo-Classic Searching for a new architectural idiom or a savings bank, or an insurance company. Neoclassicism emerged in Europe in the 18th to express their newly established demo- In fact, what distinguishes the appearance of century (1760 onwards2). Its geometric regular- cratic and secular values, secular humanists financial buildings is the way they symbolise ity, suggestive of strength and stability, emerged turned to ancient Greek beliefs and Greek the profession and its aims rather than fol- antithesis to Baroque (1700-1740) and Rococo temple architecture. lowing the form this purpose requires alone. (a movement that started in France around The ideal of architectural beauty in Form does not simply follow function but 1730) in the early years of the Enlightenment. ancient Greece which was revived in Renais- expresses it in material form. In the mid 18th Enlightened thinking emphasised scientific sance Europe and which went on to re-estab- century most of the early banks in the US empirism, secularism and democratic thinking lished itself in America, was a building with a occupied rented rooms, or shared spaces; which undermined the authority of the Church temple front: a portico composed of pediment others adapted pre-existing buildings for and the absolutist monarchy. These tensions and a colonnade of columns, rendered in their early premises. When this changed, as were voiced in the architecture of the time. As ratios that repeated themselves. The fidelity companies began to outgrow these settings, the writer Alain de Botton puts it: ‘Buildings to this classical Greek archetype is expressed the outward appearance of the new buildings speak. (…) They speak of democracy or aris- in a multitude of Greek , Roman, Renaissance that were commissioned became a matter tocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or and Neoclassical buildings. In ancient Greece, of concern. threat, (…) They are the material articulation it emerged during a period of relative peace When I first visited the New York Wall of certain of our ideas. (…), the question of following the Persian Wars in 448 BC when Street district, I was surprised - at times it the values we want to live by (…) In so far as Athens had become the leading city of an alli- felt as though I were sightseeing in Athens. buildings speak to us, they also do so through ance of Greek city states. This was a period Anticipating skyscrapers I had not realised quotation (…) They communicate by prompt- when coinage, which some hold to have the degree to which the architecture of New ing associations.’3 been primarily developed to fund military York’s oldest financial and civic institutions campaigns, began to be used fund substan- had been inspired by distant classical prece- 2 Excavations at the Herculaneum in Greece had started in tial public works, and religious sanctuaries 1735 and the first mayor book about theRuins of Peastum dents and more recent classical revivals. was published by Thomas Major in 1768 in particular. Along with the various temples 3 De Botton, Alain. 2014. Architecture and Happiness. Penguin of the Acropolis, the first exchange buildings 1 ‘Architecture & Finance I’ (2016). eabh bulletin: Frankfurt am Main Books: London. 6 bulletin | 2019/20 ATHENS TO NEW YORK Picture 2: Telesterion, Model of the Elusion sanctuary during the Roman period. Originally built 7th century BC https://alchetron.com/Telesterion, 02/04/2020 Picture 3: 3D render of the Greek Parthenon. It is isolated against a neutral background colour. It is a historically accurate representation of how the building would have originally appeared were erected. ‘Hellenic economic life stimu- More specifically it was a Doric8 temple with bank and exchange buildings all across the lated innovations in Greek architecture and Ionic9 elements, adorned by marble reliefs globe, used to convey the continuation of among the new building types produced was portraying figures in a procession and an the values embodied in these buildings with the commercial exchange.’4 The form of these inner court. But it was also a physical expres- ancient Greece, and emphasising the cen- exchanges derived from the example of the sion of political power and wealth. Follow- trality of these values over time. Telesterion (picture 2), a structure in Eleusis, ing Pericles’ transfer of the treasury of the Banking architecture and religious that marked the transition from an open to an Delian League (an association of Greek city architecture are interlinked. In most ancient enclosed space that was used for sacred cer- states stretching from mainland Greece to civilizations, the ‘temple’ was not simply a emonies. This structure proved to be suited Asia Minor to guard against Persian hostili- sacred place for religious observance, but not only for reunions of large number of wor- ties) from the island of Delos to Athens in 454 served as place to store and administer sup- shippers, but for the business of exchange as BC monetary tribute extracted from League plies and was the locale of a wide range well, indicating that temple buildings were members was diverted from military pur- of activities, hosting courthouses, office home to a range of different activities. It is poses and was used to finance massive pub- buildings, warehouses and workshops.11 generally agreed that bankers had started to lic works in Athens, including the building Further to their location within the commu- conduct financial services such as money-ex- of the Parthenon,10 the increasing assertive- nity and the protective sturdiness of their changes and securing deposits by the 4th cen- ness of the Athenians led to war with Sparta buildings, temples were the home of god(s), tury BC but religious sanctuaries became an and in turn to the dissolution of the League. which added further creditability to financial important locus for safeguarding coin, ‘with Subsequently the building lived through contracts. Or as Mumford (1961) phrases it: some evidence that exchange was conducted many changes and upheavals. It was re-used ‘The procedure of storing assets – money, within the temple in a space termed the ‘hall as a Christian church, a mosque and a stor- valuables, treasure – is ancient, and from of bankers’.5 Amongst all those temples, the age hall for ammunition, which led to it being the earliest recorded history has had reli- Parthenon (pictures 1 and 3) was: ‘the ulti- blown up by the Venetians in 1687. Despite gious connotations. The city began as a cita- mate symbol of the power of religion as the its short-lived role as a financial building, the del, a sacred meeting place which became a guardian of wealth and commonwealth.’6 Parthenon would become the prototype for holding point for what was of value to the vil- The Parthenon, the most famous of the lage. The concept of stronghold and shrine 8 ‘The Doric is one of the three canonical orders of classical archi- four temples of the Acropolis in ancient Ath- tecture, characterised by the simple circular capitals at the synthesized in the embryonic image of the ens, built to honour the Goddess Athena, top of the columns. It is the earliest and essentially simplest city and was focused in the temple, the earli- of orders. The other orders are Ionic and Corinthian. The Dor- was the representation par excellence of the ic was much used in Greek Revival architecture from 18th cen- est institution and the earliest building from classical Greek ideal of architectural beauty.7 tury onwards. See: Wikipedia contributors. (2020, March 12). associated with economic activity.’12 Doric order. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:41, March 27, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index. From this point of view, it seems that php?title=Doric_order&oldid=945132566 we can trace an association of ideas. 18th and 4 Brilliant, Richard.1977. Arts of the Ancient Greeks. New York. 9 The mayor feature of Ionic columns are the volutes of their cap- th Mc Graw-Hill Book from Severini, Lois. 1983. The Architecture of itals. The ionic tradition was equally popular during the Greek 19 century European financial (and state) Finance. Early Wall Street. UMI Research Press: Ann Arbor. Revival in the Europe and the US. See: Wikipedia contributors. 5 Rostovtsev. The Social and Economic History of the Hellenic (2020, March 26). Ionic order. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclope- 11 Silver, M. (1995). Economic Structures of Antiquity. Westport. World. In: Severini, Lois.