A New Underground Fortress for the Gold of the Banque de France
A 3D sketch of the vault from the 1929 publication World's Work.
The article accompanying this 3-D sketch of the Bank’s new underground vault in the April 1929 English-language publication World’s Work described “the almost impregnable defences of the vaults”.
The vault (in French, the Souterraine) was excavated during the period 1924-1927 by removing some 60,000 cubic metres of material from the rocky strata 26 metres below the ground floor of the Bank’s elegant headquarters in the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs.
An account of a visit to the vault in 1932 by the celebrated European writer Stefan Zweig is reproduced in the 2016 publication Zweig & la Souterraine – L’Or de la Banque de France in which Arnaud Manas, the head of the Bank’s archives, also describes the construction and subsequent use of the vault, including many dramatic photographs. A translation of Zweig’s account is also available in English. Download here.
With thanks to Arnaud Manas, Head of Archives at the Banque de France
Detail
- Date
- 1927
- Era
- Modern Period
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