European Central Bank Ostend (East End), Frankfurt am Main. The city is the largest financial centre in the Eurozone and the bank's location in it is fixed by the Amsterdam Treaty. The bank moved to new purpose-built headquarters in 2014 that were designed by a Vienna-based architectural office, Coop Himmelbau. The building is approximately tall and will be accompanied with other secondary buildings on a landscaped site on the site of the former wholesale market in the eastern part of Frankfurt am Main. The main construction began in October 2008, and it was expected that the building will become an architectural symbol for
European Central Bank Delors. It was established on 1 June 1998. The first President of the Bank was Wim Duisenberg, the former president of the Dutch central bank and the European Monetary Institute. While Duisenberg had been the head of the EMI (taking over from Alexandre Lamfalussy of Belgium) just before the ECB came into existence, the French government wanted Jean-Claude Trichet, former head of the French central bank, to be the ECB's first president. The French argued that since the ECB was to be located in Germany, its president should be French. This was opposed by the German, Dutch and Belgian governments