(Right and far right)
Giovanni Michelucci's bank
in the village of Val d'Eisa is
raised above the street,
creating a sheltered public
space.lt belongs to Monte
dei Paschi di Siena, the
second oldest bank in the
world; this branch was
constructed between
1973 and 1983
to be r eferences to ancient temples. One of
the few masters of bank design to intervene
in this structurally conservative field with an
assured hand, conjuring solidity out of bizarre
and unprecedented forms (and this despite
him being on the skids) was Louis Sullivan.
Sullivan's eight :Midwestern banks built
between 1908 and 1920 are cuboid volumes
adorned with his customary vegetal flourishes,
and strangely mausoleal, like Soane's bank
before them.
J\IIeanwhile, the stylistic modulations of the
bank continued, and indeed underwent their
greatest break so far. With examples such as
Wagner's Jugendstil-in-space Postal Savings
Bank in Vienna, SOM's :Manufacturers
Hanover Trust Building in New York, Testa's
Banco de Londres and Giovanni Michelucci's
extraordinary st eel bank in the Sienese
village of Val D'Elsa, Modernism crept surely
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(Left) SOM's Manufacturers
Hanover Trust building on
5th Avenue, completed in
1954 , was one of the first
large-scale Miesian
structures in Manhattan.
Unlike earlier banks, instead
of rich ornament it employs
transparency to entice and
reassure customers
(Above) the branches of
Guaranty Trust Bank in
Nigeria are striking
structures, of which this
example in Lawanson,
Lagos, designed by James
George, is the most
impressive
into the type. But modernity did not truly
enter the bank until the invention of the
ATM in 1967. This cost-cutting innovation
had the benefit of permitting banking at
all times of day, when banks had previously
kept inconvenient hours, and also of
transforming facades into banks at whim.
In t he form of the AT:M vestibule, it has
resulted in uncanny spaces of automation,
the vision of a future in which the service
sector has been en tirely dehumanised.
The miniaturisation and proliferation of the
bank initiated by ATMs has continued apace
in the form of banking apps, which mean the
activity has now been entirely divorced from
fixed architectural form. This has given banks
the opportunity to close t heir branches, many
of which have been converted into bars or
pharmacies. However, this is not the case
ever ywhere in the world: in Nigeria,
for instance, bank branches continue to play
a vital role and, in t he hands of architect
J ames George, they have been given
a surprisingly eccentric form. One might
not think deconstruction would be an obvious
choice for such buildings, but George is quick
to correct this supposition: 'Our ar chitecture
in Africa is naturally Deconstructivist.
The insistence on non-Euclidean geometry
that caused the Deconstructivist Eureka
moment in Europe is commonplace in our
t raditional architecture. This is the reason
why I cannot align my thought process to that
of the Libeskinds and Eisenmans of this world.
They learnt fractal geometry but, as Africans,
we are born with the ability to see all the
fractal dimensions of time.' F ew innovations
have had mor e time-distorting effects in
modernity than banking, with it s inter est rates
and futures trading, so this seems appropriate.