Gerle János: Palaces of Money - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)
The equivalent of Mercury in ancient Greek mythology was Hermes-the god of clever inventiveness, the patron of merchants and thieves and the guide of the dead. It may seem odd that banks so proudly embrace this compound metaphor, even though business life can undoubtedly be described in terms of the characteristics implied by it. (After all, the very word capital derives from the verb capitare, which means “to rob”). According to one interpretation of mythology, the figure of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, is a metaphor of the wind-the wind, which is sometimes quiet and gentle, but which can also be wild and intemperate. It arrives unexpectedly and its great force can bring superhuman devastation to all human creation. It moves with ease and at lightning speed, and there is no place that it cannot reach. It may not be groundless to consider occult aspects here, too, even though they do not directly appear in the various representations of the messenger god, but which are felt to be subconsciously alluded to. Alchemy is Hermes’ (Hermes Trismegistos) art, and its objective is the creation of gold. Its essential material is Mer- curius, whose one peculiar form is Mercurius philoso- phorum, life force itself, the essence of which uncovers the secret of the philosophers’ stone, of making gold, and is a panacea to cure every extant disease. It ushers in prosperity, and its sign, like that of the planet Mercury, two snakes winding around a messenger’s wand, is a requisite of Mercury's representations in banks. Other symbols will also be touched upon later, but now we should consider the type of building we are concerned with. With very few exceptions, the central cashier’s hall, which occupies the covered courtyard of the building, is surrounded by offices where bank employees attend to day-to-day transactions. Separated from all this and located on the upper stories are the bank’s administrative sections: management, accountancy and the archives. The transactions of various functions are divided by unconnected staircases. In the cellars, sometimes on several levels, are the safes and vaults. These were made from such materials and with such technologies that today’s builders are faced with almost unsurmountable difficulties when having to break up these facilities in order to carry out reconstruction. Real security, however, was still seen in building inspection corridors around the vaults from where guards could monitor the facilities. 12
