ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the symbols of law and our legal system promoted by contemporary legal architecture. It considers the extent to which the architectural visions of Victorian designers discussed throughout this book have since been revisited or revised. The focus is on the issue of whether there is such a thing as a ‘just’ court and the ways in which the changing context of democracy have promoted new ideas about the public spaces of law. The potential for architecture to refl ect and promote innovative concepts of justice has been clearly recognised elsewhere. The design of the Constitutional Court in South Africa provides one such contemporary example of an attempt to engender a republican conception of transformative constitutionalism through design.1 Moreover it is not only symbolic national courts which have refl ected and precipitated changing notions of justice. It has been argued that the focus on community participation in the design of some Koori courts in Australia and community justice centres in Australia, the UK and the US refl ect a focus on therapy rather than incarceration or punishment (Smart and Smart 2009; Kirke 2009). In some jurisdictions commentators have argued that as the ideology underpinning common law systems shifts the designer has become a partner in effecting change rather than just refl ecting it (Brawn 2009). One of the interests which has fuelled this project is the extent to which it is possible to both condition the design and design the conditions of the trial. In the sections which follow I consider the ways in which traditional organisation of space in the courthouse which marginalises and sometimes degrades participants can be subverted in the design process. The fi rst section of the chapter looks to the recent design history of courthouses and whether the challenge of revisiting the fundamentals of courthouse design were met during the extensive court building programme of the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on assessments of recent build in the UK and visits to courts in fi ve legal jurisdictions the remainder of the chapter presents a number of examples of modern courts which attempt to disrupt the canon in favour of creating spaces which refl ect contemporary debates about participatory justice. In contrast to the Court Standards and Design Guide (Her
Majesty’s Courts Service 2010) assertion that the design of the interior of English courts can not be improved upon by architects it is asserted that exciting new courthouses are being imagined and in some instances built.
