Today, hidden among new apartment and office blocks, this former school now houses the economics faculty of the university. Together the old school and the principal´s offices enclose a large, public space, and inject a distinctive sculptural impression into the redeveloped site.
The building is divided into two functionally different zones. The administration offices are in a narrow, eight-storey tower overlooking Monsanto Park. Larger areas, such as the foyer, meeting rooms and lecture theatres are accommodated in the base of the tower, and under an adjoining raised plateau with monumental flight of steps. The tower has the same eaves height as the old three-storey school building. Its long facades are clad with sandstone. The free distribution of window slits on the west side overlays the horizontal division of space within the building. A glazed strip marks the junction of tower and plateau. The stone cladding panels are offset in horizontal rows of differing heights. Behind the entirely closed east facade are stairs, lifts and ancillary rooms. Because of the recessed glass facades of the end walls the stone envelope of the building looks like a thin skin. On both plateau and steps, the same stone was used as on the administration tower. The facades and surfaces reveal little of the spatial division inside, the building looks instead rather like a giant sculpture. The lecture halls, changing rooms, steps and ramps in the base are arranged freely along parallel lines. Narrow strips of skylights in the plateau surface bring daylight down into the corridors and waiting areas below. The subdued, calm atmosphere down below contrasts with the hard, bright sunlight outside.
