How two big Wall Street banks are rethinking the office space

Lord Norman Foster sits for a portrait on the 42nd floor of JPMorgan’s current headquarters. Lord Foster is the architect for a new 60-story building the bank is building. He describes the new structure as a “a breathing building” because of the increased focus on air circulation.

José A. Alvarado Jr. for NPR

What will the office of the future look like?

It’s a question that may seem moot for a lot of workers in 2023, when work-from-home arrangements have become commonplace — but not for Wall Street.

Financial firms are aggressively trying to lure employees back to the office.

And for two big banks, JPMorgan Chase and BNP Paribas, the end of the pandemic has been an opportunity to reconsider the role of the workplace.

JPMorgan, the biggest of the big banks, was in the midst of planning to build a new headquarters in Manhattan before COVID-19 hit.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas, which is headquartered in France, was in the process of renegotiating the lease for its own regional headquarters in Manhattan, when New York City shut down.

Ultimately, BNP Paribas decided to scale back its real estate footprint in the 54-story building it shares with other companies. In July 2020, it signed a new, 20-year agreement for less space — six floors in total, and worked with the architectural firm Gensler on an extensive redesign.

Both financial firms have incorporated lessons they learned during the pandemic into their designs, as they have rethought what offices can mean for their employees.

Here are three of the ways they are envisioning the…