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Like all courthouses, the Roman L. Hruska Courthouse in Omaha is a programmed enterprise, with one noteworthy exception-- its public space. Such spaces must be unprogrammed, because they are given life by their users, not their program.
Being a public building, the courthouse needed an appropriately public setting. Appropriate it is-just one block from the county courthouse. We provided a magical park, a grove of 36 trees which one must pass through to enter the courthouse precinct. The fundamental relationship of man to nature is thus set forth, but trimmed down to reflect the balance of man and urban space. When the grove is fully grown, the trees will be understood as passage through the woods into the civil world of the law.
From a human-scale pavilion, one enters into the great hall, the central organizing space of the courthouse: It is grand, not monumental, as a truly public space should be. It is surrounded on each level by four courtrooms (with privately approached judges' chambers disposed behind). The central hall is defined by eight columns that generate a quasi-circular space that is asymmetrically imposed upon by a bridge at the far end. Above, a skylight is sheltered and shaded by four umbrella-like tree structures, protected by the law.
The building is transformed into four blocks of space around the central hall and vibrates with sunlight inside and out. The sun seeks out the spaces and reflects on the glass and marble interior. The public is invited inside and can approach the courts, which are the spaces of jurisprudence, through the central hall, the social space of man. There are other occupants in this building, but the emphasis here is on the proceedings of the legal system that protect us all. The courthouse is in its very essence a public building. James Ingo Freed
ROMAN L. HRUSKA UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE, OMAHA, NEBRASKA
CLIENT: United States General Services Administration, Region 6, The Heartland Region
ARCHITECT: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, New York City-James Ingo Freed (partner-in-charge); Michael D. Flynn, George H. Miller, Steve Dennis Egan, Dick Smith, Robin Taff, Abby Suckle, Jacqueline Thompson, Carol Averill, Susan Lowance, Gianni Neri, David Beatty, Maria Gomez, Brett Kedzior, Euk Kwon, Georgia Sarkin, Dara Schaefer,...