"We had the modest goal of creating a courthouse with a relationship to nature and to the formal space of the city," said James Ingo Freed, partner-in-charge of design for Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. "Stone is a material of considerable duration and durability -- it is something that speaks to timelessness. The stone here was deliberately put into the whole image of the courthouse to represent the steadfastness and continuity of the law, and the protection that law provides for us."
According to Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the winning firm of a national selection process, this courthouse was undertaken to provide the federal court system with expanded, more suitable and advanced facilities in downtown Omaha, while serving as a catalyst for the development of the surrounding central business district.