The Camondos and Their Imprint on 19th-Century Istanbul

Extract

In cities like Paris and London in the 19th century, the leading bankers not only supported the developing industrialization but also established practices that determined the nature of their charitable and philanthropic activity and their patronage of the arts. They supported scientific and archaeological research as well. The recurrence of these practices over the century is increasingly recognized and would justify investigation to uncover the underlying rules that governed the activities of bankers outside the financial sphere. In other words, it would justify research in terms of the anthropology of bankers. One aspect that has, so far, received insufficient attention is the impact these bankers had on cities—both in their role as builders and protectors of schools and hospitals and in the imprint they made on the urban landscape. In housing, for example, the Stern, Heine, and Weill families established foundations in Paris for the construction of HBM (habitat bon marché, low-cost housing), and architects adopted by the great banking families, such as William Bouwens, chosen by the banker Henri Germain to build the Parisian headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais, designed the great undertakings of the Parisian Belle Époque.