The City of Justice brings together most of the judicial bodies of Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. The project is arranged into eight independent volumes of varying colours and heights, positioned around a central square that organises the entire complex. This fragmentation replaces the concept of a monolithic block with a system of more accessible and legible units. At the lower level, the buildings are connected by a continuous atrium that structures the circulation and unifies the base of the complex.
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The project was awarded the RIBA European Award in 2010 and was a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award.
The rhythmic repetition of its windows creates the effect of a giant barcode, bringing visual order to the chromatic diversity.
The complex was designed by David Chipperfield, Pritzker Prize 2023, and Fermín Vázquez with a clear idea: to distance justice from its rigid and inaccessible image.
