Court: The Place of Law and the Space of the City

The Court is an archetype central to the notion of the polis, and indeed to the city as a political construction. Its emergence as a type, as distinct from other forms of civic architecture, can be observed in the later 19th century, the fundamental spatial principles of which remain relatively unchanged in modern courtrooms today. Rather than regarding it as a type unto itself, however, this essay will critically posit the Court as the crucible of all socio-cultural built archetypes. By examining in turn the Heliaia in ancient Athens, the Basilica Nova in the Roman Forum, Mies van der Rohe’s Chicago Federal Court, David Chipperfield’s City of Justice in Barcelona, and the ‘Old Bailey’ in London, it will read the Court variously as parliament, church, theatre, library, and heterotopia. Each of these aspects will be dealt with in this essay, as part of its attempt to merge historical with typological critique.