LUXEMBURG 2011 Court of Justice of the European Communities. Luxembourg

Invited to create a new extension and to triple the Court’s capacity from 50,000 sq metres (538,195 sq ft) to 150,000 sq metres (1.6 million sq ft), Perrault’s challenge was not only to increase space but also to give harmony to a building that had already been extended three times. First inaugurated in 1973, when the European Community included only six member countries, the Court of Justice was extended in 1988, 1993 and 1994. As Perrault saw it, the scheme’s challenge was threefold: functional, urban and institutional. First, the Court required an additional 100,000 sq metres (1.08 million sq ft) to house more than 2,000 judges, clerks and translators. Second, successive expansions, with sometimes contradictory designs needed to be rationalized and brought together to function as a whole. It was therefore not only necessary to create extra space but to unify the whole, creating a building that would seem more like an harmonious “injection” than a fourth extension. Third, Perrault’s scheme sought to reinforce the symbolic importance of the prestigious institution (…).

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