projects
Court of Justice of the European Union2019
Inauguration of the 5th extension of the European Court of Justice
2019 celebrates the 25th anniversary of the launching of the call for project for the 4th or "major" extension of the Court but likewise the inauguration, the following September 19th, of the fifth expansion entrusted to the studio in 2014.
Within the last twenty years, Dominique Perrault is committed to what we should call the Major Extension of the European Court of Justice. From the initial Palace constructed in the 1970's, several extensions were completed by the architects Bohdan Paczowski and Paul Fritsch. Then a fourth expansion, multiplyiing the Court surface by three, was issued to Dominique Perrault following a competition won in 1996. Completed in 2008, it has offered the Court a new figure, marked by the creation of two towers and of a ring encompassing the initial architectural structure.
This new development of the Court goes with the growth of the Union that initially had 15 memebers and now is composed of 28 Member States. Futhermore, the architectural whole blends within an urban plan which has led to the transformation of a European mono-functional district into a Luxembourger city district with its streets, avenues, and public spaces. The fifth extensions includes a new tower destined to accomodate new offices for the interpreter. The tower has six more levels than the other ones and its implantation slightly off-center marks the completion of the major gallery which links the three towers' bases and thus forms a new entrance on the North-East part of the site. A new public space, the "multilingual garden" fulfills the 5th extension program.
"Spirit of the laws, Genius loci : the time of an architectural masterpiece. To build a courthouse for the Euopean Union"
An exhibition will be shown within the Court on the occasion of this inauguration. It gathers models, sketches, plans, prototypes and retrace, from 1950 to nowadays, the architectural history of a unique building as well as the development of the urban planning of the " plateau de Kirchberg". This exhibition will be supported by a catalog.
