Charles R. Jonas U.S. Federal Building, Courthouse & Annex — Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA)

The expansion of the Charles R. Jonas U.S. Federal Building, Courtyard & Annex by Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) serves as a model for how historically significant civic buildings can be updated for 21st-century requirements without sacrificing their architectural character or infringing on local architectural identity.

The Charlotte, North Carolina courthouse, built in the early 1910s and tripled in size in the 1930s, required significant upgrades to meet the long-term security, space, workplace and energy-efficient requirements of a modern-day courthouse. 

The space requirements and scope of the project were so extensive that the U.S. General Services Administration had considered building a new courthouse farther from the city center.

“It’s a beloved, stunning historic civic building,” says RAMSA Partner Kevin J. Kelly, AIA. “It would have been a significant loss to relocate the courthouse. I applaud the GSA for staying uptown.”

The RAMSA team designed a new eight-story annex wing totaling 198,000 gross square feet behind the original building that adds nine courtrooms, including the top-floor Special Proceedings Courtroom, and collegial and traditional judges’ chamber layout configurations.

Carefully designed to defer to the historically significant building and acknowledge its role as a source of civic pride in Charlotte, the annex respectfully transposes the original courthouse’s dignified Classical presence on the city skyline, with its upper portion taking cues from the historical building’s restrained detailing and materiality.

The portico of the original courthouse, a large-scale civic gesture, is echoed in the form of a double-height loggia high on the annex’s exterior façade; its precast concrete panels complement the original limestone while adhering to government budget constraints.

The historic ceremonial entrance on West Trade Street was maintained and the lobby restored.

“We felt it was important to maintain the original front entrance instead of moving it to the annex,” Kelly says. “The existing lobby has a rich architectural vocabulary, and the newer spaces take cues from it. It doesn’t seem like two different buildings because we used complementary colors, natural light, flooring, and windows to tie them together.”

To add natural light to the historic building’s dimly lit workspaces, the RAMSA team added open-air courtyards and sky-lit galleries at strategic spots. The historic and new facades, for example, meet in a double-height stair hall inserted between the two structures.

“While this transitional space provides an opportunity to appreciate the building’s original architecture and craftsmanship up close, overhead skylights allow natural light to reach adjacent interior spaces,” Kelly says.

The renovation also transformed the courthouse’s inaccessible forecourt lawn, which had been sequestered behind high fencing, into an essential greenspace in Charlotte’s busy city core, where such areas are relatively rare.

Through the federal Art in Architecture Program managed by the GSA, mosaic panels made of hand-glazed ceramics and Byzantine glass that commemorate historically significant events relating to the site and region’s history were placed on the building’s exterior to animate the streetscape.

The courthouse’s sustainable performance was improved without impeding its historic architectural character: The building has received LEED Gold certification and exceeds minimum code requirements for building envelope insulation. It’s also SITES-certified, a designation that recognizes the sustainability of its landscapes and other outdoor spaces.

To bolster security, the RAMSA team incorporated three new circulation paths that separate the public, the judiciary and the U.S. Marshals who escort defendants throughout the building.

The Robert D. Potter courtroom, which is considered the building’s crown jewel and whose wood and plaster inspired the interiors of the annex’s courtrooms, was restored. Enhanced lighting and the addition of acoustic paneling preserve the room’s dignity while improving its functionality. 

A Virginia Revival courtroom—the first of its kind in a federal courthouse outside Virginia in 200 years—is among the new courtrooms in the annex. The model, championed by Thomas Jefferson, centers the jury and witness boxes below and in front of the judge’s bench, rather than to the side where they typically are placed.

RAMSA made full-scale plywood mockups of the courtrooms in a warehouse and invited judges, clerks, and staff members to test them out to confirm the sight lines.

“The courthouse annex stands apart, in a subtle way, as a beacon of more traditional architecture in a city increasingly defined by glass towers,” Kelly says. TB