Palace of Peace

Brief information

The Peace Palace was built as a home for international arbitration, but its meaning is not limited to its judicial function. The building was constructed in 1907–1913 for the Permanent Court of Arbitration with funding from Andrew Carnegie and the Russian treasury. Today it houses the International Court of Justice of the UN, and the palace itself stands in a park in the center of The Hague.

The most important shift in how to view it is that the interior was conceived as an international gift. Wooden sculptures, stained glass, mosaics, tapestries, and works of art came from the states that participated in the Hague Peace Conferences. As a result, the building is read not only as the work of a single architect, but as a symbol of the idea of peaceful adjudication assembled from different contributions.

What to notice first

It is worth comparing the materials of the facade: granite, sandstone, and red brick give the building not a smooth ceremonial appearance, but a dense, almost fortress-like texture. Above it lies a sloping roof of grayish tiles. This combination makes it clear why descriptions place Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine features side by side: the palace gathers different historical languages into a single official form.

The facade sculptures in front of the lawns are directly connected with the palace’s purpose, so the decoration here works as an explanation of the institution inside. On the left stands an 80-meter clock tower with chimes: it makes the court building look like an urban landmark. A new wing appeared behind the palace, and later the attic was converted; these additions show how the representative shell began to accommodate more and more of the court’s working spaces.