In this talk Linda Mulcahy will discuss the history of ideas about courthouse design in the UK and common law world. Drawing on extensive archival research undertaken over a ten-year period she will discuss the ways in which the performance of due process and state justice has become progressively undemocratic at the same time as civil and human rights have become increasingly reified. Taking discussions about court design between architects, lawyers, engineers and security experts as her starting point, she will explore the many ways in which the voices of architects, litigants and even lawyers have become marginalized in debates about the material structure and conditions of the trial.
