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The building of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt am Main is the result of a complex process that intersects and amplifies a set of issues concerning the relationship between architecture and power at the turn of the millennium. From the initial competition, launched in 2002, to the inauguration of the tower designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au, this case highlights the reluctance, on the part of the institution, to use architecture to project power and showcase its mission. This hesitancy relates to the ECB's particular status as a supranational institution, operating between multiple national identities. While assuming an increasingly political role, the bank tried to present itself as a neutral, technical body, responding to a model of depoliticized governance. All that matters is what the institution does, not what it is. On a parallel level, this functionalist outlook aligned with a contemporaneous shift in architectural practice and thought. The traditional concern with representation was challenged by an evolving notion of materialism, which set aside questions of meaning in favor of questions of performance. All that matters is what buildings do. From this perspective, the performance of the technical infrastructure was believed to be the primary source of meaning, for both the institution and the architecture that housed it. The unfolding of the ECB project, however, revealed the limitations of such approaches. Given the importance of the bank within the governance of the European Union during a time of economic crisis, the building site became the stage for multiple symbolic rituals and forced a difficult reflection on the image of the European community. Despite the efforts to blend in and neutralize architecture, as in the case of the euro banknotes, the building process pushed the ECB to address its unique political dimension, beyond reductive notions of technical efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores an obscure project in architectural history that a bank commissioned an interdisciplinary group of advisors to undertake in the mid-1990s. The task was to provide models to the participants in a design competition for the banknotes of a new currency — models that were not to be reproduced but only stylized, concealing any specific historical reference. After the winner was determined through an opinion poll, an unexpected by-product was the construction of actual buildings modeled after the stylized architectures on the banknotes. The distinctiveness of this process, and the reason for its complexity, lies in the fact that, contrary to what one may expect when discussing architecture and money (especially architecture on money), everything had to operate on a supranational level. The currency in question was the euro, which replaced the national currencies of twelve European states in 2002. The organization behind this endeavor was the European Monetary Institute, in collaboration with Gallup Europe. Its task force was asked to produce a historical survey of European architecture, whatever that might mean. As evidenced by the documents associated with this project, the primary requirement was to avoid national bias (EMI 1996: 2). As architecture and, more specifically, architectural history had been working in the opposite direction for centuries, this is a unique opportunity to explore how our discipline negotiated the process of nation-unbuilding and the emergence of a new, supranational structure of power in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]