Over 11 years after the project was first announced, Naji Issa, Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), inaugurated the CBL’s construction project for its new headquarters in the Gurji area of Tripoli last Monday (11 August), in the presence of several CBL department heads and notaries.
In its information and marketing video for the project, the CBL says this comes as a step to bring the CBL’s departments together in one integrated independent facility like the rest of the central banks of the world. It said this will end an era in which the employees of the various departments suffered due to their scattered presence in several different areas in the city of Tripoli.
The CBL says design of the new building is inspired by the ancient cave homes dug into the Western/Nesfusa Mountains. It is designed according to the latest approved engineering standards to be the first building of its kind in Libya to obtain the golden accreditation for environmentally friendly buildings.
Its modern systems, it adds, consider the digital transformation strategy, making the project a symbol of the independence of the CBL, as an independent sovereign institution.
Specifically, the new 50,000-square-metre headquarters will occupy an area over 5 hectares with a car park with a capacity of 1,100. It will be able to house the 1,000 employees of the CBL’s 30 departments, its training centre, a library and a clinic.
Danish architects Henning Larsen win design competition
It will be recalled that in April 2014, and as reported then by Libya Herald, it was announced that the design of Danish architects, Henning Larsen, won the competition for the build of the new CBL headquarters.
Henning Larsen beat off competition from 22 other international and local designers to win the contract. The project will bring together CBL offices that have been scattered around the capital, since the bank’s iconic headquarters building on the coastal side of the Medina (Old City), has long been unable to house all departments.
Although no cost has been revealed, it may be indicative to know that a plan published in 2008 to build a new Italian-designed CBL bank HQ on the-then Green, now Martyrs’ Square, was costed then at €98 million.
Henning Larsen, in announcing their success, have emphasised the environmental and low-energy credentials of their design which involves offices built around a slightly angled atrium.
The architects explained: “By using and re-interpreting specifics of the Libyan nature and culture the new headquarters of the Central Bank of Libya will be a symbol of the new Libya, both for the local as well as the global community.
“We believe that the Central Bank of Libya must project an image of authority, solidity and security. At the same time, the Central Bank of Libya plays a crucial role in Libya’s economic growth, and as such, it should project a forward thinking, dynamic attitude, that grasps opportunities.”
