Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd., the family- owned U.K. investment bank that has been based in the same London building since 1809, hired Rem Koolhaas to design new headquarters in the city.

Rothschild aims to move into the building, on the site of its current premises in London's main financial district, in time for the bank's 200th anniversary. Koolhaas, a 61-year-old Dutch architect, designed the Prada flagship store in New York and the Seattle Public Library.

By the bicentenary in 2009, Rothschild will have ``laid the foundations for a new century in a fine building which addresses the bank's needs for the decades ahead,'' Chairman David de Rothschild said today in an e-mailed statement.

Lazard Ltd., the investment bank whose origins date back to 1848, moved to offices in the west of London in 2003. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. securities firm, relocated its U.K. headquarters to a 33-floor glass-and-steel skyscraper in Canary Wharf designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in 2002.

Rothschild's existing home in St. Swithin's Lane in east London includes a room from which the bank set the world price for gold, known as the gold fix, every day from 1919 through 2004. The new building will have ten office floors linked to three annexes and will accommodate all of Rothschild's employees in London.

White City

Koolhaas and his partnership, The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, won the competition for the project, which will be the group's first building in the City of London, as the business district is called. Other projects in London include the redevelopment of White City, home to the British Broadcasting Corporation in the west of the capital.

Stanhope Plc, a closely held British company that's building one of London's tallest skyscrapers, the 60-floor Bishopsgate Tower, is advising on the Rothschild development.

The Rothschild banking empire was founded by Mayer Amschel, who was born in 1743 in Germany and trained as a dealer of rare coins in Frankfurt's Jewish ghetto. In the 1790s, he sent four of his five sons to set up trading firms in London, Paris, Naples and Vienna. Rothschild currently has over 40 offices in 33 countries and employs about 2,000 people worldwide.

To contact the reporters on this story: Julia Werdigier in London at jwerdigier@bloomberg.net; Simon Packard in London packard@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 13, 2006 07:54 EDT