In 2002 the University of Leiden invited Atelier PRO to draw up a design for the renovation of the most prestigious building of the oldest university in the Netherlands: the Academy Building in Leiden. This is a representative building where each faculty has its own office and where all important ceremonies are held. Because the monumental premises needed a thorough restoration, Atelier Pro worked together with the restoration architects Veldman | Rietbroek | Smit.

In the past the routing through the building was a problem: corridors that came to a dead end, the lack of a lift. Now visitors can find their way logically through the monumental corridors from their entry in the vaulted chamber to the ceremonies in the Large Auditorium, and to the reception areas. A new staircase has been designed at the end of the corridor in the Neo-Gothic part to improve the routing.

The adjacent alley has been converted into a transparent transition area and now combines with the new staircase to form a link between the Neo-Gothic part and the reception areas, the ground floor and the first floor. Another striking improvement is the covering of the courtyard with a glass roof. This area functions as an overflow for the adjacent reception area and has become the centre of the left-hand part of the Academy Building. A former lecture room on the top floor of the Neo-Gothic part has been redesigned as a single large Gown Room, with splendid glass cupboards for the hundreds of gowns of the professors.

The Faculty Club, the university meeting place, was added to the construction. A restaurant, kitchen, lounge and several stylish conference rooms have been clustered around an enclosed garden. The building also houses the Academic Historical Museum. An historical collection entrusted to the university is exhibited throughout the entire building in modern cabinets. After extensive research on the colours used in the past, all of the historic areas and façades have been restored to the pre-1878 situation.

The other areas are decorated with a palette of ‘Old Dutch’ colours, in accordance with the monumental character of the premises. Old and new combine to form an alluring unity that does justice to the monument and to the ambitions of the university. Her Majesty Queen Beatrix opened the building on 31 August 2009 when she unveiled a bronze relief that represents the donation of the university to the city of Leiden by William of Orange in 1575.