Robert Kalina

500 euro bill, modern architecture.

Robert Kalina (born June 29, 1955) is an Austrian designer of the National Bank of Austria. It is famous for the designs of the euro banknotes.

He started early with the notes of the Austrian Shilling since 1982 returned to their sketches. He achieved international fame, with his designs for Euro banknotes that were selected in September 1996 by a jury in which 44 sketches competed. An added difficulty was that the design should not show anything that would show any European nation, to avoid small national jealousy. While many other sketches persevered in the banknote tradition and applied important personalities reflected in anonymous portraits, Kalina completely renounced faces and applied motifs from the history of European construction to the general architectural style of the countries. On the obverse of the tickets are windows and doors that symbolize the spirit of openness and cooperation of Europe. On the back the motif represented are the bridges, a metaphor that speaks of the union of the European peoples with each other and with the rest of the World.

None of the monuments or buildings that appear on Euro notes actually exist although they were inspired by real architectural elements. Similarly, none of the bills include national motifs.

The organization of euro banknotes was valued after its introduction to the European people generally as satisfactory; no further reorganization is planned.

Robert Kalina is also responsible for the design of the banknotes introduced on 1 January 2006 in the Azerbaijani Manat notes of Azerbaijan.

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