In the Treaty of Rome drawn up in July 1998, the international community made provision for the future establishment of an international criminal court in The Hague. Persons suspected of having committed war crimes, genocide or serious offences against international human rights would be tried here.

The exceedingly stringent security measures, the great length of the trials, the vast number of people involved and the multiple and advanced application of technology mean that the programme obtaining at traditional law courts would need radically rearranging. This design for the tribunal evokes the image of the courtroom as a theatre awash with media and technique. The unusual placement of the courtrooms in the building ensues in part from the revised position of the large quantity of office space, which ordinarily is regarded as something a lawcourt complex is unavoidably saddled with. In a criminal court the circuits for the various parties, before anything else need to be kept physically distinct from one another. The circulation systems in the building lead each party according to this separation principle from a quadruple helix to one of three courtrooms. En route the players are confronted with one another and induced to make some assessment of the truth. The architectural staging hammers home the difference between the reality of being in court and one's expectations on this score.

I was inspired by the absurd and illusive world of the writer Franz Kafka to subject a serious institute like the International Criminal Court to an uneasy architectural design:
'On entering he must almost have tripped, for there was another step behind the door. So the courts of enquiry were here, in the attic of this tenant house? "See, the waiting room," said the messenger. It was a long corridor, off which rough wooden doors led to the various departments. Although there was no direct lighting it was not in complete darkness, as instead of closed timber walls on the corridor side, some departments had course wooden railings that reached up to the ceiling, letting in a little light and through which you could see some officials. ... I couldn't decide whether or not we were in a court of law. There was much to be said for it, and much against.'

Place of education: TU Eindhoven
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Bert Dirrix, Pieter Jan Gijsberts, Ronald Knappers, Jeroen Boomgaard & Marc Maurer