
TARTU COURTHOUSE
competition - 1st prize
TARTU, ESTONIA
PUBLIC SPACE
9700m2 | 2025
Concept: Mari-Liis Palts, Katy Seppel
Interior Architecture: Mari-Liis Palts, Katy Seppel, Loviise Talvaru, Jakub Wiktor Adamski
Architecture: Kaidi Poobus-Sopp
Engineering: Jael Kotkas, Meelis Lehtla
Photos: Sixten Sepp
In the Tartu Courthouse, truth takes spatial form.
The 2022 competition project is now completed and tells its own story: truth is not black-and-white, but layered. Just like in the courtroom, where different perspectives are weighed to reach justice, the new building narrates this idea through its layered wall panels, light, and shifting tones. Even the tilted walls of the courtrooms hint that the path to truth is not always linear.
All of this is crafted with dignified materials that give the building a calm, solid, and trustworthy character.
The artwork “Light Blends with Shadows” (2025) is done by Mirjam Hinn.














