Bank, Florence

It was built to house the headquarters of Cassa di Risparmio of Florence. After Florence was declared the capital of the Italian Kingdom in 1865, the Cassa di Risparmio Bank moved from the Medici Riccardi Palace to new and more spacious premises at Via Bufalini 6. In 1953, architect Giovanni Michelucci (1891-1990) was asked to enlarge this building, but ended up designing a completely new building. Work began in 1954 and after only three years, in 1957, Florence had its new bank.

The history of the new building's facade is a typical Florentine saga. Michelucci's design was rejected by the building authorities, who insisted on a facade in the same style as the older building. In the 1960s, the imposed facade was demolished, not in order to implement Michelucci's original design, but to recreate an old-fashioned portico in the same style as the adjacent Santa Maria Nuova City Hospital. The facade has not changed since then, and to discover the true wonder of Michelucci's design you need to go inside where you will find yourself in a sober but well-designed interior.

The Cassa di Risparmio is a vast concrete structure with some 1860 square metres of floor space and a volume of 34,500 m³ (7700 m³ underground). It includes a big public hall, counters, offices, a car park and a large vault. Although it is no longer the bank headquarters it still operates as a bank.

Entering from via Bufalini you come directly into a wide, double-height hall with marble floor, Pietra Serena tiles and an oak-beamed ceiling. Beyond this entrance hall is a corridor. On the right-hand side of the corridor is a public hall and a wide staircase paved with 'perlato' stone; on the left are small rooms overlooking a courtyard garden. Despite the bareness and simplicity of their materials, some of the details – such as the chestnut wood shutters, frames and handrails – are of unquestionable elegance. The main aspect of Michelucci's concept was the idea of creating an internal route, a sort of continuation of everyday life in the town. The route would lead visitors through the building, continuing to the upper floors, the mezzanine and the galleries. It would also create a connection with the huge steel beams (which were supposed to be realized in prestressed concrete, but were not, due to time constraints) and, above all, with the complex roof construction. This, together with the oak beams, is characteristic of Giovanni Michelucci's architecture. The large windows flood the internal space with light.

The Cassa di Risparmio building is one of the few works by Michelucci in Florence. Together with the General Post Office, it represents his idea of public architecture with a social dimension. His wish was to build an architectural work that could be seen as a miniature city. Although he was not always successful in achieving this goal, this building does offer tourists a powerful interior monument.