Law Courts, Balaguer
- Frank Kaltenbach
The old town of Balaguer in the province Lleida is one of the most important historic town centres of Arab origin in Catalonia. Reflecting these origins the lanes around the new law courts building are narrow and crooked. Warm shades of ochre are dominant, not only in the soil of the fields but also in the facades of render or stone. The shell of the new building takes up this warm range of colours in the form of sheets of Corten steel and traces the irregular shape of the site. In contrast the spaces in the interior are organised on a strictly orthogonal grid in order to meet the complex functional requirements. This results in angular, tapering buffer zones between the external shell and the storey-high glazing to the offices. These areas establish a distance to the neighbouring buildings and in this hot region provide shaded, naturally ventilated open space. There is two-storey difference in level across the site. The main entrance lies at the lower street level and is emphasised by the way in which the Corten steel cladding to the first floor extends like a storey-high beam to span both the main entrance and a lane that runs along the north side of the building. Above this “beam” the façade is swivelled back at an angle and here the steel curtain has a linear texture made up of vertical “Z” sections, subtly distinguishing it from the otherwise planar shell. At the opposite short end of the building a bay that uses the same texture and projects at an angle into the street corresponds with the set-back on the entrance front. Thus the building volume represents a geometrical overlay of the orthogonal floor plan and the surrounding urban space. On one long side this intersection is revealed in the way the polycarbonate facade on the third and fourth floors steps back at angle. Once inside you note that the building is not nearly as hermetically closed as a first glance of the exterior might suggest: large areas of the Corten steel sheets are perforated so that, like looking through an Arabian muscharabia, they offer a filtered view out of the building and, when the lighting is switched on, allow passers-by to catch a glimpse of the interior.
