In order to adapt to the current needs of the Ministry of Justice, the whole building of the Palace of Justice needs to be rehabilitated.
The functional program of the Courts needs to be adjusted, complying all the new regulations required in the CTE (Technical Construction Code), solving issues such as accesibility for people with disabilities, evacuation and energy efficiency.
The intervention highlights the value of the current building, preserving completely its four facades until the level of cornice, replacing and improving the profiles of the windows and undertaking the cleaning and treatment of the stone and brick.
Above the first stone cornice, previously there was another floor and an inclined roof, which had worse quality compared to the rest of the building. That’s why it is replaced by a new volume, lighter and diaphanous, that by its material quality tends to merge with the sky, highlighting the noble part of the existing building.
The use of a perforated metallic lattice protects the glazed facade of radiation, but achieves permeability allowing the passage of light and views through the building.
The new upper volumen acquires a neutral and transparent carácter, dematerialazing above the current cornice during the day and acting as a luminous lantern at night.
The soul of the intervention links with an already extensive contemporary tradition of approaching existing buildings with the purpose os revitalizing them, making overlays or additions of new volumes with modern language that helps revive and enhance the inherited.
Some examples of this accepted way of intervening in the Historical Heritage are the Opera of Lyon, rehabilitation by Jean Nouvel, The Tate Modern of London and the Caixa Forum in Madrid, both reformed by Herzog and De Meuron, the rehabilitation of the historic buildings of Escuelas Pías de San Anton as the new headquarters of the COAM (Oficial College of Architecture of Madrid) by Gonzalo Moure or the extensión by Nieto y Sobejano of the Museum of San Telmo in San Sebastian.
