Work on the construction of a new building with a height of 160 m, where the regional, police and district courts, now located in different parts of the French capital, were supposed to unite, stopped shortly after they began in June 2013 and for more than 2 months have not been able to get off the ground.
The root cause of this problem is that French lawyers do not want to move from the center to the periphery - from the Isle of Citet, where the huge complex of the Palais de Justice is now located, to the Clichy-Batignolles area on the northern outskirts of Paris, where the Piano Tower is being built. To prevent a move scheduled for 2017, disgruntled lawyers have teamed up to form La Justice dans la Cité and sued a public-private partnership building a new Palace. The trial judge dismissed their claim in May 2013, but they filed an appeal, and the case will only be finally decided in 2014. Meanwhile, banks issuing loans for construction (its budget is 575 million euros) have stopped payments until the situation is cleared up - and work has stalled.
The difficult situation could be easily resolved if one of the partners in the partnership - Bouygues Construction, the recipient of the mentioned loans, or the State Enterprise of the Paris Palace of Justice (EPPJP) - would agree to "insure" the banks against possible - if lawyers succeed in court - financial losses, but neither the construction company nor the state dares to do so.
This situation is especially surprising, given the status of the project: it was promoted by President Sarkozy himself, and its implementation began despite public protests (among other things, a high-rise building could disrupt the panorama of the city). The scale of the idea is also impressive: on a total area of 88.5 thousand square meters, 9,000 people will have to stay every day, 4,000 of them are employees. The building will consist of 4 volumes, decreasing in size, stacked on top of each other. The lower of them, 27 m high, is comparable in size to the buildings of "Paris Haussmann", says Renzo Piano. It should have a 5,500 m2 lobby with 3 atriums and 50 reception desks. Outside, a plaza of 6 thousand m2 adjoins it, from where the interior is clearly visible: the building is emphasized "transparent", which should personify the quality of French justice.
There are 90 courtrooms above the lobby. In the second volume there are offices of employees, in the third - the prosecutor's office, in the uppermost, the fourth - offices of judges. Outside, the differences between the blocks are designed like wooded terraces. In the center of the facade there is a "dorsal fin" - a shaft of panoramic elevators.
Due to the building's thickness of only 35 m and transparent double facades, the interior plans to make extensive use of natural light and natural ventilation. Solar panels will be installed on the facades, and a rainwater collection system will be provided.
