The building was erected on the site of the former Antwerp-South railway station, over the Bolivar Tunnel (Dutch: Bolivartunnel), and it houses eight district civil and criminal courts.

This site offered several advantages, namely that it would have the possibility of a clearly recognisable building, it was close to both the existing law courts on the Britselei, the Antwerp prison and the federal police, and lastly, it would have a good connection with the rest of the city with easy access to public transport.

The Régie des Bâtiments organised an international architectural competition in 1998 to design a new building to house the Antwerp law courts.

Ten architects submitted draft designs, mainly from Belgium, but also from the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

On 23 April 1999, it was announced that the winning team was the consortium from the United Kingdom of the Richard Rogers Partnership and Ove Arup & Partners, and VK Studio from Belgium.

[2] On 21 September 2000, the Buildings Agency concluded a Promotion Agreement with Justinvest Antwerp, which was an association between Interbuild, KBC and Dexia.

The wood lining of the sail roofs is visible from the public reception area, the salle des pas perdus.

[9] The building is located in the south of the city centre, it consists of six wings of courts and offices that radiate out from a public reception area, called the salle des pas perdus (lit.

[10] The entrance to the building is via a large staircase on ground level from the Bolivarplaats (English: Bolivar Place) rising over tram lines and onto the salle des pas perdus.

At one stage he said that he had hoped to "have the sails turning with the wind, scooping and funnelling fresh air into the building at all times of day, weather and season".

[3] The building houses eight district civil and criminal courts, plus offices, chambers for judges and lawyers, a library, a dining room and the salle des pas perdus.

It holds the following judicial services: When the Richard Rogers Partnership was designing the building they focused a great deal of attention on its environmental aspects of the project, and also on the effective use of energy.

[2][10] The landscape was planned with green embankments serve as a visual and acoustic barrier against the noise and pollution from the nearby motorway,[2][10] to do this, 100 roof-shaped plane trees were planted on Bolivarplaats in front of the building.