The Pescara Courthouse gets a facelift

The construction of a new courthouse in Pescara was an important event in terms of the city’s architecture and provided an opportunity to redevelop a large and previously marginalised zone in the southern area of the city. The complex building consists of a load-bearing structure with reinforced concrete pillars and beams and a flat roof. The two vertical volumes on the side facing the sea intersect horizontally with a third volume positioned in such a way as to form a large access portal. Two long parallelepipeds with glazed ventilated façades extend above the ground-floor courtrooms along the east and west sides. The complex consists of a total built area of 45,000 square metres on a 57,000 square metre site and accommodates 30 courtrooms, 610 offices and 1,000 workstations. The two main buildings are connected by a large straight gallery roofed with iron girders and illuminated during the day by a large transparent skylight. The main entrance is on the north side, where a triangular-shaped plaza has been created as a user reception area. The original cladding of the outer walls of the courthouse was installed between 1998 and 2002.
Between April 2018 and February 2020, the original material was replaced with 14 mm thick porcelain stoneware from Cotto d’Este. The work on the façade was particularly significant, consisting of a total of 24,000 square metres of ventilated cladding on the external elevations, including those facing onto the covered gallery.
The tile was specially designed to give an exceptional look to this imposing building. The veining was reproduced with enormous precision and three-dimensionality, creating an astonishing sense of visual depth that enhances the restrained elegance of the building while maintaining its image as a familiar city landmark. The extra-thick porcelain slabs were mounted on a special structure bolted to an underlying aluminium frame, which in turn was anchored to the original omega-shaped substructure.
A contemporary, imposing building that appears to stand out against the sky, the Pescara Courthouse has a marble effect ventilated ceramic façade that conveys a sense of modernity and elegance ideal for an institutional building of this kind. The chosen pale colour, which seems to expand the building’s spatial presence, is perfect for a seaside town like Pescara. For a building of this kind, the most important qualities of a façade are durability and performance, qualities that are assured by the ceramic tiles from Cotto d’Este along with safety and elegance.