When passing through the East of Frankfurt you might certainly see a giant skyscraper. It doesn’t look like a part of a skyline – it is standing out and surrounded by rather small buildings and residential zones. The giant glass windows look like a giant mirroring and it is really an amazing piece of architecture. That doesn’t only seem to be my opinion; for some years, every time when I was passing through the Ostend with friends one of them said: ‘Do you see this building? That is the new European Central Bank!‘. Proudly. Like it doesn’t happen so often with a skyscraper in Frankfurt.
The European Central Bank (or short ECB) is the central bank caring about the Euro currency and working on its stability. It is an important building block of the European Union and supervising the banks in the Eurozone. It was founded in 1998 and had its headquarters in the Eurotower in the city centre of Frankfurt – you can still see a giant Euro sign in front of that building. At the end of the year 2014, it moved to its new home in the East of the city. The building has 45 floors and is 185 meters high.
Unfortunately, there is no visitors terrace with good views but there are two good reasons to enter the building: first, there is a visitors centre explaining the function of a central bank. Second, the building has been built on the grounds of a former market hall – the Großmarkthalle. The rooms of this market hall have been used to gather the Jewish inhabitants of Frankfurt prior to their deportation – a memorial reminds on these dark times.
Europäische Zentralbank / European Central Bank (EZB/ECB)
Sonnemannstraße 20
60314 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
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