"Peace Palace" in The Hague
Stainless steel by the Stainless-group decorades the façade of the Court of Justice in The Hague
In January 2007, Queen Beatrix herself inaugurated the extension of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The additional building at the foot of the so-called “Peace Palace” contains from now on a reading lounge and a conference hall. “Our pretention was to give the new building its own identity, while paying respect to the style of Neo-Renaissance of the Peace Palace, which was build in 1913”, explains Michael Wilford, Chief Architect. “And we were successful.” Amongst other things through a modern stainless steel façade, whose material comes mainly from plants of ThyssenKrupp Stainless.
„The manufacturing showed, how versatile you can use this material“, says Stefan Lummel from the Lummel GmbH & Co. KG, Karlstadt (nearby Würzburg, Germany), who was entrusted with the construction of the façade. “The cover of the cube-shaped conference hall alone needed six thousand steel shingles with a thickness of 0,4 millimetres, but in different forms and sizes – a hugely complex project”, explains the tinsmith.
The harmonic unity of stainless steel and red clinker cladding becomes apparent in the reading room, which was also coated with stainless steel material by ThyssenKrupp Nirosta. The trapezoidal hall is used as a bridge between the old and new building. A total of 20 tons of stainless steel decorates the building’s façade on a surface of about 550 square meters.
The surface treatment was done with glass sphere radiation by the SIS Markt GmbH, which is also located at Karlstadt. This method bestows a self-cleaning effect and a low reflection-level upon the material, without affecting the basic properties of the material.