RESEARCH STUDIO PLACE 2.5
BERLAGE INSTITUT ROTTERDAM
NEW YORK
HEADQUARTERS OF A
NEW YORK
BANK
BY PAOLA ALFARO D’ALENCON
Only 15 years ago all bank customers, whatever their business, were served over the counter. In today’s international banking a system has been established for categorising customers according to asset value. As a rule customers with a high asset level encounter their bank only at exclusive restaurants or on the golf course, while customers of modest means do so on the monitor in the course of online banking. When the function of the counter area as the identification and communication centre of the bank fades away and bank branches are increasingly replaced by online terminals, what function and role will the headquarters of a bank have in future? How can a bank continue in future to train and retain the best staff? Are there strategies to win back the relevance of the bank building and with it customer loyalty? What is the architectural answer to the ever more important role of the headquarters as the icon of a bank’s brand value? The starting point of the project are two icons of the city landscape in New York: the Seagram Building by Mies van der Rohe and Paley Park.
All intellectual property rights and copyrights are owned by Paola Alfaro D’Alencon, graduate student at the Berlage Institute, visiting professor Dietmar Leyk with Nils Becker and Tobias Lutz