Katie Godding

This project explores the logic of debt as a strategy for restructuring the Bank of England. The Bank, both institution and place, has a long history of maintaining belief in the financial system while obscuring other realities. By bringing potential futures into the present, held up by value found in the past, the Bank is an extreme example of debt-fuelled architecture, made more significant by the Bank’s legacy as the originator of the concept of the National Debt itself. To what lengths would the Bank go in order to maintain belief in this system?

The Bank of England needs to grow, but it must not change. To survive new challenges, the 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' must acknowledge the four elements that have shaped its existence - Techno-Historicism, Debt-Futurism, Hyper-capitalism and Ruinism.

In Techno-Historicism, the value of the past is brought in the present, seen before in the Bank's recreation of ancient roman designs.

In Debt-Futurism, potential futures are preempted, as when the Bank founded the concept of National Debt.

In Hyper-Capitalism, efficiency is maximised in the present, demonstrated by the Bank's aggregated development.

And in Ruinism, the the Bank destroys parts of itself to continue its existence, as when Sir John Soane's creation was mostly demolished to create the structure that exists today.

In the proposed restructuring, contradictory futures, pasts and present realities play out simultaneously, resulting in an illogical yet highly necessary form of ‘HyperSoanian’ architecture in which current power structures are deeply entrenched. In The Making of Indebted Man, Maurizio Lazzarato describes the reality of neoliberal debt as ‘living in a society without time, without possibility, without foreseeable rupture’. The proposed renovation sees the Bank relapse into a ‘HyperSoanian’ city within a city where it becomes impossible to implement change even when the contradictions are self-evident. 

By heightening the conflicts present in the Bank’s architecture, where it is equally harking back to the past, performing efficiently in the present and predicting the future, this restructuring intends to reveal the neoliberal debt system that drives it through architectural representation. In doing so, it looks to question the complicity of the architect in perpetuating such ideologies through the creation of reassurance spaces, and allows for potential leverage within this strategic site in the worldwide financial system.