Visit Salt Lake City’s New United States Courthouse

Sleek, modern, and cutting-edge, the new United States Courthouse in Salt Lake City is not your typical judicial building. Standing ten stories high, the head-turning structure—opened in 2014—is the brainchild of architecture firm Thomas Phifer and Partners. A winner of a 2015 AIA Institute Honor Award, the LEED Gold–certified building features an intricately paneled façade of glass-and-aluminum that permit light to stream into the courthouse’s common areas and offices.

Visitors enter via a three-story-tall main lobby, where a spiral staircase is encapsulated by wood slats. The building also contains ten courtrooms, 14 judges’ chambers, and a number of federal agency offices. At the center is a soaring atrium extending the height of the building, with an installation by the American artist James Carpenter. The structure’s glass ceiling allows natural light to flood the entire space. Outside, a garden terrace connects the new building to the city’s historic Federal Courthouse, joining together old and new.