ABSTRACT
The debate about Manchester Civil Justice alluded to above raises important questions about the very concept of ‘courthouse’ and the role that the places in which justice is done have played in our civic landscape over time. The topic has been much neglected. Whilst close attention has been paid to public buildings types such as churches, castles, or town halls this has been to the detriment of studies of the courthouse. When justice facilities have been studied the focus has tended to be on prisons as the contributions to this collection make clear. Technical accounts of historic courthouses which focus on aesthetic convention or style such as those provided by English Heritage, the Pevsner guides and the Victorian County Histories are informative but tell us very little about the social or political significance of the buildings described. Contemporary architectural historians have been more interested in going behind an appreciation of technique and style to an understanding of the symbolism and political ideology underpinning design but much of what exists focuses on particular courts of national significance and very few accounts bring the history of court design up to the present.3 Despite this, there are inherent tensions in design briefs for courthouses which make them particularly ripe for analysis. Their position as democratic spaces in citadels of authority make them an ideal subject for detailed research about the rhetoric and reality of public space in modern societies.4
