Something to See

The best way to keep something safe, as Edgar Allan Poe pointed out in The Purloined Letter, is to put it where everyone can see it. Taking a leaf from Poe's book, Manhattan's Manufacturers Trust Co. last week showed off the design of a "glass house" for its new midtown branch, planned so that everyone will be able to see everything in it.

The $3,000,000 building was designed by Architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who also did an earlier glass-walled building for Lever Bros. (TIME, April 28, 1952). The new bank's exterior will be built almost entirely of glass, braced by a framework of thin, vertical aluminum supports called mullions. The only stone in the bank's walls will be the granite base, and one corner panel.

"We had an idea that it was time to get the banks out of mausoleums," explains Architect Louis Skidmore. In a radical departure from bank design, the safe-deposit vault (built of steel, set in granite, with a 30-ton door) will be on the main floor, in full view (with a spotlight on it at night). Another feature: a penthouse for executive offices and dining room. Like the Lever Building, the air-conditioned bank's windows will be sealed to keep out dust and grime. Says Skidmore: "We're trying to make the bank more human."

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