From ancient sites to digital infrastructures
For Milano Design Week, Banca d'Italia's Milan branch will be hosting "Architectures of trust and the value of money", a photo exhibition created in collaboration with MUDEM. The exhibition is open to the public on the mornings of 21-24 April in the branch's Salone del pubblico, providing a visual and conceptual history of money through the architectures of the places where it is issued, kept and managed.
From monumental ancient stone temples to clear-glass contemporary skyscrapers, the images convey the constant dialogue between stability and openness as the two fundamental principles of what we could call the "infrastructure of trust".
The exhibition rests on the key idea that money is not only a financial instrument, but also a material and symbolic construct which manifests itself through the buildings and sites that make value, which is immaterial by its very nature, both visible and credible.
The images range over eras and civilizations to give us an architectural lineage of money. It starts with the architectural complexes of the Mesopotamian ziggurats, keepers of the earliest financial documents in history, and the Greek temples and the Roman mint, where money becomes a tool for political identity and the representation of power. Then come the Italian banks of the Middle Ages and the public banks of the late Renaissance, followed by the English coffee houses, informal places where the first trading markets and stock exchanges were born.
The Industrial Revolution gave rise to new symbolic sites for finance, such as the great railway stations, which embody the links among mobility, capital and modernity. In the era of the gold standard, instead, the vault came to represent the architectural heart of monetary stability, as the physical space in which value is materially stored. Finally, we come to the contemporary central bank and the concept of fiat money, with value now founded on trust. In this section there is a special focus on Palazzo Koch, Banca d'Italia's Rome headquarters, and the Milan branch.
Panels, photographs and architectural designs portray two emblems of the Bank's presence in the latter city: the historic building in Piazza Cordusio and the Via Moneta premises, built in the 1990s. Both are an integral part of their historical, economic and urban context and highlight how their architectural forms - solid, monumental and inspired by the classical tradition - use stone to represent the principles of stability, continuity and trust.
The story closes with the European Central Bank buildings, from the Eurotower to the new skyscraper in Frankfurt, where architectural language is radically transformed: monumentality gives way to transparency, lightness and visual permeability, reflecting the role of central banks in today's world.
Opening hours
from 21 to 24 April, 8.15 am - 1.30 pm
