Off the Map by Alastair Bonnett

Author:Alastair Bonnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MBI
Published: 2014-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

Geneva Freeport

46° 11' 18" N; 6° 07' 38" E

Hidden from view, in the dark, there is something growing: storage places, air-conditioned vaults filling up with an expanding volume of valuable things. This is the antithesis of our throwaway society. For, at the same moment that consumerism coughs up great rivers of shoddy gizmos to be mashed up and drained away, it also brings forth increasing quantities of beautiful and rare objects: paintings, cars, wine bottles, sculptures; items that have to be dusted, photographed and catalogued to be prized and kept for ever. Where once such valuables might be crammed into the houses of the elite, today their possessions are so plentiful that this is no longer an option. The relationship between the rich and their objects of infatuation has also changed. Now they buy them as investments, as an essential component of any serious wealth portfolio.

The Geneva Freeport is a massive high-spec warehouse of treasure. From the outside it is a nondescript white concrete block surrounded by grey roads and grey car parks, but it may be the most valuable building on the planet. The total worth of the art alone in the Freeport has been estimated at $100 billion. Alongside the artworks there are vaults and floors of other rarities, such as three million bottles of wine, decks of million-dollar cars, even a chamber full of cigars. The vaults are populated by a small army of conservators and inventory takers, but it’s a lonely job, often requiring that these experts are shut up inside a safe room for most of the day. One art specialist, Simon Studer, recalls being locked in one chamber that contained thousands of drawings, paintings and sculptures by Pablo Picasso: ‘I was checking sizes, condition, looking for a signature and making sure the art was properly measured,’ he told the New York Times. He eventually worked out that the knocking sound from next door came from another inmate who was counting gold bars: ‘You have no idea what is next door and then you happen to be there when they open a door and, poof, you see.’

Freeports are places where goods can be imported and exported free of customs duties or other taxes. They are a medieval invention that has long been useful in easing the flow of trade and were never meant to be sites for hoarding valuables. In 1888 the Grand Council of Geneva voted to establish the Freeport. At the time it tended to stock more prosaic items and hold them only for short periods. However, Switzerland’s unique regard for the privacy of foreigners wishing to use its tax-free facilities soon began to attract a niche clientele. By the end of the twentieth century the Geneva Freeport had established itself as the world’s central repository for a new kind of global investment system based on the buying and selling of objects of high value. Since works can be sold and bought within the Freeport without transaction taxes of any sort, it effectively operates as a trading hall.

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