Wonthaggi court house, one of the grander buildings in town. If you have to spend time in a
court house, pay attention to the architecture, suggests Tim Shannon
court house, pay attention to the architecture, suggests Tim Shannon
By Tim Shannon
MOST of us prefer to avoid court houses. However, there are people who spend their working lives serving the Court, doing their best to steer the carriage of justice, to uphold the law, and to protect our rights. The courts are the highest authorities in the land, they quietly keep governments and citizens in tow, and the buildings they reside in are most curious.
MOST of us prefer to avoid court houses. However, there are people who spend their working lives serving the Court, doing their best to steer the carriage of justice, to uphold the law, and to protect our rights. The courts are the highest authorities in the land, they quietly keep governments and citizens in tow, and the buildings they reside in are most curious.
Cities and large towns are where you will find court houses, clustered around a variety of activities such as lawyers and solicitors chambers and offices, providers of legal aid, perhaps the Salvation Army, a place to buy lunch, cigarettes and a magazine or newspaper, a taxi rank, a bus stop, maybe a train station. There is probably not enough space outdoors to spend time talking or waiting, no flash shops and restaurants, no flower shops, no banks, and no police stations to sully public confidence in the independence of the courts. This is the legal precinct, essential to any city, but shunned by the top end of town.
Monday to Friday the public start to arrive before ten in the morning, some old hands and some first- time customers. The court staff arrive early to prepare for another day. Like trusted umpires, they are neutral participants in the dramas that unfurl, while everyone else falls into one of two adversarial camps: the “prosecutors” and the “defenders”. Everyone is dressed ready for church, clean, neat and tidy, subdued for a funeral, not colourful for a wedding.
The ritual begins and the court house stirs to life. Judges and their associates, court attendants, lawyers, solicitors and barristers, defendants, accusers, witnesses, jurors, prisoners, friends and family of those being defended or prosecuted, court reporters, and the press; they all follow the building’s pathways leading them to a room where human plight is dissected.
Judges are kept separate until they enter their court, as are the jurors, and prisoners. Meanwhile everyone else shares the public entry and the indignity of its security screening; they share the lifts, and the waiting areas in the passageways and concourses that are lined with the doorways that offer entry to each Court Room, hearts racing and eyes searching for friends while trying to avoid the awkward glances of foes.
To enter the court room there is a door for the judge and his staff, for the jury when there is one, for the prisoner when there is one, and one for the public which includes all proponents with their legal teams, witnesses, family and friends. Each participant is precisely positioned so the proceedings can play out.
The building is a blunt device which gathers citizens in their search for justice, while the court room is a forensic instrument which allows them to see and hear the pleas and judgements made on their behalf. The search for the truth follows the twitch of an eye, a turn or drop of the head, the clasp of a hand, a nervous breath, the change of tone in a word. Just the wrinkle in a face might cause a change of fate.
The Australian court house is a marvellous mix of contradictions. In a day it might be host to criminals small time and dangerous, fraudsters, disgruntled employees, victims of crimes, dodgy bosses, debt collectors and debt avoiders, heartbroken families, and all manner of characters that would fill a library with novels. How it came to be is a story worth the telling.
It is a story about people and it begins 850 years ago with Henry the Second, the English King who created the courts system which the First Fleet brought to the shores of Botany Bay. A few sailors and soldiers escorted hundreds of England’s outcasts to this foreign faraway land, to establish a penal colony whose law and order relied on the legacy of Henry the Second.
Francis Greenway appears next. An architect convicted of forgery and despatched to Sydney Cove who became the colony’s government architect and designed the first Supreme Court of New South Wales. Its architecture was Georgian, the style of choice for buildings that needed to display their gravitas and to encourage citizens to respect the law.
A century later this growing mob of colonials saw themselves as Australians living in a bountiful land. They fought for federation, signed up to a new constitution, and began planning their new capital city. After the terror of the early times in a forbidding land, when the memories of a far-away home provided comfort, the now familiar landscapes offered new hope.
An international competition for the design of the capital was held, and it was the American couple Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney who won first prize with their vision of the Australian landscape with its hills, valleys, and plains shaping their plan.
This set the scene for our next person of interest, John Smith Murdoch, an English architect who was appointed to lead the government authority responsible for the new capital. It was he who had encouraged Griffin and Mahoney to visit Australia, and he was responsible for designing the capital’s provisional parliament house in its stripped classical style, practical, simple, and unadorned.
Murdoch went on to design a number of court houses around Australia, the most influential one being the first High Court building, located in Melbourne. It established the basis for a new Australian court house; unpretentious, open, transparent, serious but welcoming, a reminder of the importance of the law and justice and of those who dedicate their lives to upholding its values and purpose.
Seventy years after federation, a competition was finally held for the design of the new High Court to be built in Canberra on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, and two more important characters appear in the story: Garfield Barwick who was the Chief Justice of the High Court at the time and who held strong views about the role of the High Court; and Chris Kringas, the architect who led the design on behalf of his Sydney practice Edwards Madigan Torzillo and Briggs, the winners of the competition.
Monday to Friday the public start to arrive before ten in the morning, some old hands and some first- time customers. The court staff arrive early to prepare for another day. Like trusted umpires, they are neutral participants in the dramas that unfurl, while everyone else falls into one of two adversarial camps: the “prosecutors” and the “defenders”. Everyone is dressed ready for church, clean, neat and tidy, subdued for a funeral, not colourful for a wedding.
The ritual begins and the court house stirs to life. Judges and their associates, court attendants, lawyers, solicitors and barristers, defendants, accusers, witnesses, jurors, prisoners, friends and family of those being defended or prosecuted, court reporters, and the press; they all follow the building’s pathways leading them to a room where human plight is dissected.
Judges are kept separate until they enter their court, as are the jurors, and prisoners. Meanwhile everyone else shares the public entry and the indignity of its security screening; they share the lifts, and the waiting areas in the passageways and concourses that are lined with the doorways that offer entry to each Court Room, hearts racing and eyes searching for friends while trying to avoid the awkward glances of foes.
To enter the court room there is a door for the judge and his staff, for the jury when there is one, for the prisoner when there is one, and one for the public which includes all proponents with their legal teams, witnesses, family and friends. Each participant is precisely positioned so the proceedings can play out.
The building is a blunt device which gathers citizens in their search for justice, while the court room is a forensic instrument which allows them to see and hear the pleas and judgements made on their behalf. The search for the truth follows the twitch of an eye, a turn or drop of the head, the clasp of a hand, a nervous breath, the change of tone in a word. Just the wrinkle in a face might cause a change of fate.
The Australian court house is a marvellous mix of contradictions. In a day it might be host to criminals small time and dangerous, fraudsters, disgruntled employees, victims of crimes, dodgy bosses, debt collectors and debt avoiders, heartbroken families, and all manner of characters that would fill a library with novels. How it came to be is a story worth the telling.
It is a story about people and it begins 850 years ago with Henry the Second, the English King who created the courts system which the First Fleet brought to the shores of Botany Bay. A few sailors and soldiers escorted hundreds of England’s outcasts to this foreign faraway land, to establish a penal colony whose law and order relied on the legacy of Henry the Second.
Francis Greenway appears next. An architect convicted of forgery and despatched to Sydney Cove who became the colony’s government architect and designed the first Supreme Court of New South Wales. Its architecture was Georgian, the style of choice for buildings that needed to display their gravitas and to encourage citizens to respect the law.
A century later this growing mob of colonials saw themselves as Australians living in a bountiful land. They fought for federation, signed up to a new constitution, and began planning their new capital city. After the terror of the early times in a forbidding land, when the memories of a far-away home provided comfort, the now familiar landscapes offered new hope.
An international competition for the design of the capital was held, and it was the American couple Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney who won first prize with their vision of the Australian landscape with its hills, valleys, and plains shaping their plan.
This set the scene for our next person of interest, John Smith Murdoch, an English architect who was appointed to lead the government authority responsible for the new capital. It was he who had encouraged Griffin and Mahoney to visit Australia, and he was responsible for designing the capital’s provisional parliament house in its stripped classical style, practical, simple, and unadorned.
Murdoch went on to design a number of court houses around Australia, the most influential one being the first High Court building, located in Melbourne. It established the basis for a new Australian court house; unpretentious, open, transparent, serious but welcoming, a reminder of the importance of the law and justice and of those who dedicate their lives to upholding its values and purpose.
Seventy years after federation, a competition was finally held for the design of the new High Court to be built in Canberra on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin, and two more important characters appear in the story: Garfield Barwick who was the Chief Justice of the High Court at the time and who held strong views about the role of the High Court; and Chris Kringas, the architect who led the design on behalf of his Sydney practice Edwards Madigan Torzillo and Briggs, the winners of the competition.
The High Court Canberra. Photo: Kgbo, Creative Commons
The design was a masterpiece of Rational Modernism. It realised Barwick’s vision for the future of the Australian Court, and it was exquisitely crafted under Kringas’s watchful eye. The building is composed of three varying, light and gracious court rooms which share a grand processional ramp and are suspended in a great transparent hall. Straight forward and authentic, it commands its setting with dignity in the landscape as Griffin and Mahoney had envisaged. Modern Australia had arrived.
During the 30 years that followed, the Commonwealth continued to build court houses around the country contributing further to the Australian identity and sense of justice. It is here that our final character appears: Michael Black, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court. It was he who guided this enterprise, ensuring that the courts were open and transparent designs, that they expressed fairness and hope, and that they had the capacity for collegiality, safety and comfort. He became the greatest influence of all our players in this tale.
I have been lucky to have designed a few courts with this clear sighted and determined man, and I feel some satisfaction when there is a news report of gatherings outside one of them, waiting for the arrival of some unfortunate character. Should you ever have the need to spend time waiting in a passage lined with court room doors, among your friends, family and foes, you are likely to have one of life’s most humbling experiences.
During the 30 years that followed, the Commonwealth continued to build court houses around the country contributing further to the Australian identity and sense of justice. It is here that our final character appears: Michael Black, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court. It was he who guided this enterprise, ensuring that the courts were open and transparent designs, that they expressed fairness and hope, and that they had the capacity for collegiality, safety and comfort. He became the greatest influence of all our players in this tale.
I have been lucky to have designed a few courts with this clear sighted and determined man, and I feel some satisfaction when there is a news report of gatherings outside one of them, waiting for the arrival of some unfortunate character. Should you ever have the need to spend time waiting in a passage lined with court room doors, among your friends, family and foes, you are likely to have one of life’s most humbling experiences.