History of the buildings

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In 1952, although the cities of Liège and Brussels were being considered as potential seats for the ECSC institutions, Luxembourg was ultimately selected on a provisional basis. As far as the Court is concerned, this choice became final at the Edinburgh Council in 1992, when the seats of the institutions were decided upon once and for all.

In 1952, the Luxembourg Government made available to the Court the Villa Vauban, located in the middle of the Municipal Park in Luxembourg City, along with two other buildings, to accommodate the 57 staff members.

La Villa Vauban 1952 - 1959The Villa Vauban 1952 - 1959

In 1959, the Luxembourg Government offered the Court a building, owned by the Bishopric of Luxembourg on the Côte d’Eich, large enough to accommodate all of the Court’s services.

Côte d'Eich 1959 - 1972Côte d'Eich 1959 - 1972

Nevertheless, the increase in staff, common to all the Community institutions, particularly in view of the first enlargement of the European Communities planned for 1973, led Luxembourg to develop the Kirchberg Plateau in order to accommodate all the institutions in one place. The Court’s permanent buildings were also constructed on that plateau.

In 1972, with 223 staff members, the Court moved into the Palais, built especially for it on the Kirchberg Plateau by the Luxembourg State.

This Palais, designed by the Belgian architects Jamagne and Vander Elst and the Luxembourg architect Conzemius, was officially inaugurated on 9 January 1973, thus providing the Members of the Court and its staff with appropriate premises in which to work.

Le Palais en 1973 The Palais in 1973

The increase in the number of staff at the institution led, in 1979, to a congestion of its premises. In order to cope with this, offices had to be rented in the buildings of other European institutions. However, the Court's needs increased further with the accession of Greece (1981), Spain and Portugal (1986), Austria, Finland and Sweden (1995), and the creation of the Court of First Instance (1989). The number of staff increased from 626 in 1988 to 837 in 1994.

For this reason, three annexes to the Palais, designed by the Luxembourg architects Fritsch, Herr and Huyberechts, as well as the Italian architect Paczowski, were built between 1985 and 1994: the ‘Erasmus’ building (inaugurated on October 5, 1988), the ‘Thomas More’ building (inaugurated on February 12, 1993) and finally the ‘Themis’ building (inaugurated on September 15, 1994).

The presence of asbestos in the Palais led to its evacuation in 1999. The Court again had to resort to other buildings to accommodate all its staff, in particular a prefabricated building known as ‘T Building’, for the needs of the language services (from 1999 to 2019).

Le bâtiment « T » The ‘T’ Building

Alongside the asbestos removal work on the Palais and faced with the needs arising from the  wide-ranging enlargement planned for 2004, the Court and the Luxembourg authorities launched an ambitious construction project.

This new project coincided with a change in the Union’s policy vis-à-vis its buildings. Up to that point, buildings were made available by the host country; in the case of the Court, by the Luxembourg authorities. Like the other institutions, it was expected that the Court would acquire ownership of all its premises. The Court therefore undertook to take over the buildings under a lease-purchase system.

At the request of the Luxembourg authorities, the French architect Dominique Perrault developed a project centred on the renovated Palais and a space open to the public where the courtrooms are now located. Around it, a rectangular ‘ring’ (Anneau) was built, reserved for the offices of the Members of the Court of Justice, two towers to accommodate the institution’s various services and a Gallery connecting all the buildings of the complex were also part of the new architectural project.

Construction work on this project began in late 2003. On 1 May 2004, 10 new states joined the European Union. The arrival of staff members from those 10 new Member States made a new logistical organisation necessary: once again, the temporary leasing of another building outside the complex – in fact, an extension of the ‘T’ Building (‘T2’) – to accommodate lawyer-linguists from the new Member States, was an inevitability.

The renovation of the Palais and the construction of the Anneau, the Gallery and the two towers were completed at the end of 2008 and inaugurated on 4 December of that year. The surface area of the complex increased from some 85 000 m² to nearly 200 000 m², the number of courtrooms went from five to 11 and the number of offices from 1 000 to 2 200.

The opening of these buildings allowed the Court to renovate the Erasmus, Thomas More and Themis buildings before reoccupying them in 2013.

In the meantime, the enlargement of the European Union to include Romania, Bulgaria (2007) and Croatia (2013) gave rise to an increase in the Court’s jurisdictional activity, in addition to the increase in the number of its Members and staff (three additional Advocates General at the Court of Justice (2015) and a gradual doubling of the number of Members of the General Court from 2016 onwards).

In order to accommodate this increase, construction work began on a third tower in the spring of 2016.

At 29 floors and 118 metres high, the Rocca Tower is the tallest building in Luxembourg.

With the inauguration of the Rocca Tower in September 2019, all of the Court’s services are once again housed in a single building complex.

Vue sur l’ensemble des bâtiments prise du nord-ouest