Book Review: Legal Architecture: Justice, Due Process and the Place of Law
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663913502278d |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Author | Todd S Phillips |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
technologies exist as a messy ‘cultural imaginary’ (p. 17), even for one of the social
groups to whom they would seem to matter most.
SIMON A COLE
University of California, Irvine, USA
LINDA MULCAHY, Legal Architecture: Justice, Due Process and the Place of Law. Abingdon: Routledge,
2011, pp. 224, ISBN 9780415618694, £28 (pbk).
Legal Architecture is welcome, timely, and impressively ambitious in its scope. It charts
the evolution of judicial facilities in Britain from the earliest times to the present. It also
addresses some rapidly emerging dynamics and technology-driven possibilities that are
posing profound challenges to the ways that justice is delivered now.
The author’s approach is bold in its attempt to rise above the often fragmented and
uneven ways that courthouse planning and design are handled in both discussions of his-
torical developments and descriptions of how to approach new judicial projects today.
Mulcahy is correct when noting the ironic paucity of material on a subject that is other-
wise of first importance. This lack of an extensive body of literature is a comment on the
complexity of the issues involved and of the need to examine them from more perspec-
tives than most individual observers can command.
The design and delivery of judicial brick and mortar are generally shot full of chal-
lenges so steep and varied that it is a wonder when a courthouse project emerges suc-
cessfully from the gauntlet of competing priorities and byzantine procurement
processes that it has to pass through. Public policy makers, justice system profession-
als, planners, and designers – the building owners, users, architects, and engineers that
need to work together to produce a good result – speak different languages. Harmony
can be elusive.
After staking out the history of space dedicated to justice, Legal Architecture turns to
consider the formal design guidelines and priorities that govern how judicial facilities are
conceived and procured now. The complexity of the subject, vast time frame, and myriad
players involved make it inevitable that some unevenness and arguable observations
emerge along the way. Parts of the discussion are vulnerable to critical sniping from its
flanks. But the overall spirit and main thrust of the analysis are a valuable contribution to
our understanding of issues that are becoming more acute.
The first several chapters trace the evolution of court space over many centuries from
ancient times and then the medieval period on, noting how the physical settings of the
trial reflected evolving conceptions of justice and the status of the individual. The set-
tings varied widely. Open fields, the shade canopy of large trees, and interior spaces that
served multiple purposes with varying degrees of enclosure – all were used as the places
where judgments about guilt or innocence could be rendered. It is a fascinating story that
is thoroughly bound up with huge dynamics, from the growth of centralized power and
secularization to the emergence of new social structures and class conflict.
596 Social & Legal Studies 22(4)
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