Dhe new headquarters of the Deutsche Bundesbank will apparently cost more than a billion euros and more expensive than the striking skyscraper of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt’s Ostend. A spokesman for the Bundesbank said on request on Tuesday that there was still no reliable cost estimate, this will only be available after the planning for 2023 has been completed. The fact that the new Bundesbank headquarters will cost more than the ECB skyscraper by the architects Coop Himmelb (l) au, which was opened seven years ago and which has long since become an urban landmark for Frankfurt and the monetary policy of the euro zone around the world has is not disputed.
The cost of the ECB building, which connects the historic wholesale market hall from the 1920s by architect Martin Elsaesser with a modern high-rise building, was estimated at 1.3 billion euros at the time. The high costs had sparked discussions in Frankfurt at the time. A Bundesbank spokesman, however, rejected a report in the Handelsblatt that the Bundesbank’s costs were now getting out of hand.
Symbolic power of the two centers
Both headquarters are symbolic: the self-confident skyscraper of the ECB on the Main with lots of glass also stands for European monetary policy, which has been operated from here since 2014. The Bundesbank, with its defiant building block, which has so far mainly been characterized by a lot of concrete, on the so-called “Diebsgrund” at the other end of Frankfurt, not only stands for the monetary policy of the national predecessor organization. In the Governing Council of the ECB, the position of the Bundesbank is nowadays often the line of the “hawks”, who are more in favor of a tighter monetary policy, versus a majority of “doves” who are in favor of a more relaxed policy. This is also what the two headquarters stand for.
It has long been clear that the Bundesbank headquarters needs to be overhauled and expanded. That is why there is a big move in Frankfurt, around 2000 employees are temporarily housed elsewhere. A real ensemble of buildings, called the “campus”, is to be created in the vicinity of the previous headquarters. This will include three new office buildings, also known as “high-rise slices”, as well as a gym, a day-care center and a catering pavilion.
The ECB headquarters cost around 1.3 billion euros.
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Image: dpa
Four reasons why the Bundesbank headquarters is more expensive than the ECB
The Bundesbank names four reasons why its headquarters are becoming more expensive than that of the ECB. The headquarters of the Bundesbank will simply be designed for more employees than that of the ECB – namely for around 5,000 instead of 2,300. So measured by the number of employees, it is a larger project.
In addition, unlike the ECB, the Bundesbank has a huge gold store. It is now said to store more than 1700 tons of gold in Frankfurt after parts of the gold treasure were brought to Germany from other countries. It is said that you have to plan money for this for the new headquarters.
In addition, the construction costs have generally risen sharply. The ECB built between 2010 and 2014, the Bundesbank is planning it for 2024 to 2029 – in between there would be significant price increases. Inflation, which ECB President Christine Lagarde and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann often discuss, is clearly leaving its mark on the institution itself.
Last but not least, the requirements for sustainable building have increased significantly, explains the Bundesbank. Finally, Weidmann and Lagarde often wrestle over the issue of climate protection in monetary policy. In any case, the Bundesbank wants to use many possibilities of renewable energies for its headquarters, from solar cells to geothermal energy. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann himself, however, will no longer be able to move into the new headquarters: he will eventually stop at the end of the year.
The new Bundesbank headquarters in the model of Morger Partner Architects.
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Image: Nils Thies
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