Bucerius Kunst Forum

This guide to the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg opens with a question about the stone figures over its entrance on Alter Wall, a god and a knight carved in the 1910s to announce what the building once protected. It traces the structure back to 1914, when it was built as the Hamburg branch of the Reichsbank, the empire's central bank, its marble floor shipped from the German colony of Togo and its facade watched over by medallions of three emperors. You'll hear how the building outlasted the empire that built it, standing as a fortress for money through most of the twentieth century. Look up at the entrance and see if you can find both figures still keeping watch.