26 March 2023 (partly cloudy, 10C).
If Brussels is considered as the capital city of Europe, that ‘seat’ has metastasised to a few locations in the vicinities.
Along with the private finance sector’s main players, Frankfurt is also the location of the European Central Bank. The walk is like many in Europe’s capital in the sense that, even though the bank stretches across a few buildings, quite a lot is concentrated in the symbolic grandeur of the main tower located in the city’s east end. The tower is designed by Austrian architect Wolf Dieter Prix of the architectural cooperative Coop Himmelb(l)au. It is integrated into with the vast horizontal structure of the listed Großmarkthalle, Frankfurt’s former wholesale market hall. that was also where Jews persecuted by the Third Reich were collected before deportation to concentration camps. In addition to the grandeur of the tower, this dark detail of the area’s history can be seen in commemorative signs at one end of the bank’s fenced area.
You’ll find a few more photos from this walk here.