Modern judicial architecture
Introduction
The City of Justice of Pontevedra is an architectural and judicial complex in the Spanish city of Pontevedra, formed by two large judicial buildings built in 1998 and 2019 in the A Parda neighborhood.
It houses 28 single-person judicial bodies of the judicial district of Pontevedra, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Pontevedra, offices of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Galicia and the Ministry of Justice. For its part, the Palace of Justice in the center of the city houses the headquarters and presidency of the Provincial Court of Pontevedra.
Location
The Pontevedra Judicial Complex is located to the west of the A Parda neighborhood and is accessed through Hortas and Francisco Tomás y Valiente streets. It is located 500 meters from the railway station and the bus station.
History
Prior to the construction of the first court building of the judicial complex in the A Parda neighborhood, most of the courts were dispersed in various buildings in the city of Pontevedra, many of them rented, so over time the need to bring together all the courts in a single judicial complex became clear. Some of the courts were located in the Palace of Justice of Pontevedra, headquarters of the Provincial Court of Pontevedra, inaugurated on September 17, 1956 on Rosalía de Castro street.[2] In 1948 the city council had given up the site occupied by the old prison to build the Palace of Justice and in 1954 the Provincial Council of Pontevedra contributed one million pesetas for its construction.[3].
After a delay of several years, on April 18, 1995, the project for a new building to house the city's courts was presented, designed by architect Fernando Martínez Sarandeses. However, in August 1995, the mayor of the city, Juan Luis Pedrosa,[5] reached a difficult agreement to build the new judicial building in the A Parda neighborhood, on the site of the old provincial prison.[6][7][8].
The project maintained the design planned for the Campolongo neighborhood with some specific modifications to adapt it to the new location of the A Parda neighborhood. The works began on May 30, 1996, after the demolition of the old prison, and ended in February 1998.[6] The new judicial building was inaugurated on March 5, 1998.[9].