The Courthouse as a Center of Civic Life

TTB interviewed Judge Sandra L. Lynch (1st Cir.) and Judge Douglas P. Woodlock (D. Mass.) on the opening of the Boston, Massachusetts, courthouse.

Q: What were your roles in the planning and construction of the new Boston courthouse?

Woodlock: I have been involved since 1987 when GSA did a study to see whether or not the old Boston courthouse could be renovated to serve the needs of the courts. When that building was built there were three resident federal judges in Boston. At the time GSA did the study, there were about 20 resident federal judges in Boston, and the courthouse was literally bursting at the seams. The GSA study was characteristically inconclusive, but the House Appropriations Committee authorized a separate study by the Administrative Office concerning the Boston situation and that study was clearer. There was no way the old building could be renovated or restored to serve the purpose of the courts. I became irretrievably involved at that point, an involvement that has continued from the appropriations process all the way through completion of construction, as a representative of the Massachusetts district court.

Lynch: This courthouse is the home of the District Court of Massachusetts as well as the central home of the First Circuit. So throughout the process there has been a representative from both courts. The representative of the First Circuit initially was Chief Judge Levin H. Campbell, and then after Judge Stephen Breyer became Chief Judge, Judge Breyer was involved through 1994, when he went on to the Supreme Court. When I came on the court, replacing Judge Breyer, I was involved, particularly in the con-struction and programming phase of the future courthouse. It seemed to me that we could do more with the Community Outreach Program.

Q: Generally, what message should the architecture of a federal courthouse send its community? What did you tell the architect, Harry Cobb, when you first sat down with him?

Woodlock: At the outset Harry Cobb told us that “the courthouse should convey in every aspect of its design those qualities—probity, permanence, clarity and restraint—that are embodied in the administration of justice.” To develop those principles, we began a series of extended conversations with the architect in 1991 on what courts do generally and what the federal courts do specifically. There were two additional basic propositions that we thought were fundamental. First, is the sense that the courts are open and accessible to everyone. The second is that the courts are engaged, on a day-to-day basis, in attempting to craft judgments that reflect the highest aspirations of the profession, and the building should reflect that sensibility.

One thing that we didn’t do is prescribe some particular official style. We thought the process of designing the courthouse should grow out of these conversations.

The architect embodied these principles, in one way, through a huge picture window that looks out on the city of Boston and the harbor, but also lets the city look back into the courthouse. Symbolically it illustrates the openness of the courts, the sense that this public institution can at the same time be observed by and serve the public.

The craftsmanship involved in this building exists at a variety of levels, but perhaps the most basic one is in the masonry. This is a building made out of brick; the masons were encouraged, in fact challenged, to provide the highest quality of workmanship. They used the most common of materials to illustrate brick-by-brick the craftsmanship that ought to be expressed by the work of the courts themselves. We felt strongly that the courts depend for their authority on persuasiveness, accordingly the building was designed to be a medium to express the sense that we are doing our work, open to the public in a craftsman-like way.

Lynch: I have a latecomers’ perspective because I was not involved in the design. But I have observed how the design interacts with the messages the building sends to our community, in addition to the sheer utility of the building as a courthouse.

It is a building designed to be an important public building, to demonstrate the respect that our society has for the Rule of Law. It is a building of some dignity, without grandeur or pretense. It is a building that affords dignity to jurors, in the performance of their role. The jury rooms here are windowed rooms. The juror assembly lounge is a beautiful room that looks out through the eight-story glass wall. There is a sense of respect that the building conveys for the participants.

It is a very efficient and economical building. It was built within budget and at a moderate per-square-foot cost within this area for such a complex building.

It is a safe building, far safer than our old courthouse. That is accomplished largely by having three separate circulation patterns, one for prisoners; one for jurors, operations and judges’ chambers; and one for the public. These patterns do not intersect. In the old courthouse they intersected all of the time and caused security problems. Here, people feel safer, and they are safer.

This is a building that is meant to be a center of civic life. It is more than a courthouse; it provides a vehicle to educate the public about the role of law and the Rule of Law. It was designed with spaces that could be used by the public and for educational functions.

Q: Security is, of course, a concern. What measures can be taken to ensure security along with public accessibility to the courthouse? How do you build a courthouse that doesn’t look like a fortress?

Woodlock: It is hard to conceive of any building in an urban area that isn’t to some degree vulnerable, but they ought not to look vulnerable, and they shouldn’t appear to be fortresses. We took a whole series of steps to “harden” the building, to incorporate into the structure various kinds of security appropriate to the special needs of the building. At the same time we sought to avoid the appearance that terrorist groups had set the agenda for the design of public spaces. For example, we have this huge picture window that looks out to the water. Yet, it is set back quite a way from the street. The whole idea is to make it secure, and not let people feel that it is fortress. We did that through a strong street wall that’s made out of brick, and by putting most of the glass in a part of the building that’s not immediately accessible from the street.

Lynch: The Boston courthouse shows that you can build a courthouse without making it look like a fortress. I’d like to talk about why that is important. Courthouses ought to look like the place people receive justice. The symbolic value of this building is that it communicates the principles of American law rather than the principles of oppression. This building conveys all of the appropriate messages for a democracy. It is possible to do that and still build a secure building.

Q: How does a federal courthouse integrate itself into its community?

Lynch: I will only speak about the choices made in Boston. Our courthouse is located in a very important area of this city, and it was inconceiv-able to the city, to the state, and to the judges that the building would not serve in some sense as an impor-tant civic building, open to the public. So we made commitments to the community that to the extent con-sistent with judicial use of the build-ing, security, and funding, the build-ing would be open to public use.

GSA, the landlord of the building itself, hired the professional managers who in turn hired a full-time staff person as a courts and community program coordinator. Her job is to see to the scheduling of events in the building, and to help pull the public into the building. For example, we are having a children’s theater production next weekend at a time when the court doesn’t sit, and the courthouse would normally be closed. The children’s theater group wants to craft some special theatrical programs around the theme of justice and the court system to explain that to kids.

We also turned to the Bar for assistance with our idea that this building should be used as a vehicle to educate the public about the role of the courts and the rule of law in a democratic society. The Boston Bar Association raised several hundred thousand dollars to hire a full-time staff coordinator to work on this use of the courthouse to educate the public. As a result we were able to have a community open house on the day after the courthouse’s grand opening ceremony. On that Saturday, the courthouse had between four and five thousand people go through it. They brought their children up to the courtrooms where there were judges and volunteer lawyers arguing some of the great cases. You heard people asking questions about their constitutional rights, and about how the court system operated. One of the judges ran a courtroom for kids, and the kids came in and they sat in the jury box and they asked questions about what it meant to be a juror. They tried on a judge’s robe, they sat at a table and they drew drawings of what justice meant to them. We would like, through the Boston Bar Association program, to bring most of the area school children through this building to provide them with a basic civics education on the role of the Third Branch of government. The Boston public schools are very receptive to this idea, and we hope that students will learn that the courts are an important part of a democratic government.

Woodlock: It is very much in the best interest of the Judiciary to attempt to tell our story in a way that is consistent with our mission. We are introducing school children to what has become the least understood branch of government. Working through the Boston Bar Association, and with the Children’s Museum, which is only a block away, and with a variety of other programs, we have tried to embark on that educational program. It is good for the general public, but it is also good for the Judiciary at a time when the Judiciary is under attack and the independence of the Judiciary is subject to harangue. It is important that the public develop a sense of what the Judiciary does. Once they have that understanding, they will become the most active supporters of the idea of an independent and properly regarded judicial branch of government.

Lynch: There has been much concern expressed about the public not understanding the role of the courts. A former president of the American Bar Association reported to the workshop of all of the judges in the First Circuit last week that there has not been a mandatory civics education program in this country for the last 15 years. The superintendent of the Boston public schools reports to us that he considers the mandated state social studies curriculum to be deficient in basic civics education. The type of education about the role of courts in a democracy, which we assume is there, is in fact not there, and so I think it is important judges participate in these efforts. When we had this workshop a Bar president said to us that the use of this building for these educational purposes was one of the most important things the judges could do to restore a sense of respect for this branch of government.

We are building a constituency for the courts in the bar and in the pub-lic, and we are helping with a basic understanding in the role of the courts in a democracy. Much of the debate about cameras in the courtroom has centered around the need to educate the public about what the courts do. We have decided in Boston that there are other methods of educating and getting that message out, and that’s what we have been engaged in with the Bar association.

Woodlock: From a construction and a use-of-building point of view, this really doesn’t cost anything at all. We are making use of spaces that otherwise would be unused in the building for large periods of time. Of course the courts must be able to do their business, and nothing can interfere with that, but you should recognize that federal courthouses generally have what they call a 66 percent or so efficiency ratio, which means 33 percent of the space is circulation space or otherwise non-occupied space. It’s space that’s not used for a specific programmatic function. We’ve taken those circulation spaces and designed them to accommodate large public gatherings and events, spaces the community could use when the courts are not in session. Moreover, the jury assembly area in off hours can do double duty as a public gathering space. It amounts to a kind of leveraging of the federal dollar to maximize use of a public building.

Lynch: And let me add, that the community reaction to this notion of the courthouse as a community center has been overwhelmingly positive. The people voted with their feet when they came into the courthouse for the open house. In fact, the next day, Sunday, the building was closed and we had hundreds of people knocking on the door, wanting to get in and see their new courthouse. Let me point out one other aspect of the building that may be unique. At the ground floor of this building there is a plaque integrated into the design of the wall, with the names of the workers who built this courthouse, workers of all colors, men and women. We thought that it was important to acknowledge our indebtedness to those workers who created this magnificent building. And as part of our opening ceremony we invited all of the workers back to the building so they could see their names and show their families what they had built.

Q: In your experience, what would be the most important point (or perhaps points) to keep in mind in the planning and construction of a federal courthouse?

Woodlock: It’s not merely a responsibility, it is a duty for the federal Ju-diciary to get actively involved in the process. I have spent some time look-ing at courthouses around the country. The ones that don’t work are the ones where the judges were not actively involved. The ones that do work are the ones in which the judges had a major role. This is not merely establishing authority with the relevant players like GSA, but it is also being willing to make the kind of time commitment that is necessary to provide meaningful direction.

The importance of these buildings for these communities just can’t be understated. There hasn’t been a federal courthouse built in Boston for three generations. We hope this building will last five or more generations and leave a lasting impression on the community. Early on in this process, Justice Breyer said, “Do you know why we have to be so actively involved in this? Because people are going to look at this building and say the federal judges were involved in that building. If we get it right, generations of people will recognize that the federal Judiciary understood its responsibilities. If we get it wrong, there will be generations of people blaming us.”

Lynch: It was absolutely essential that judges from both the court of appeals and the district court were involved in the design of the building, and throughout the construction phases. You will get back what you put into it, and people should not underestimate the time commitment. This is a serious project to be dealt with, with the same care and attention that we give to our caseloads. And Justice Breyer had it exactly right, the community looks at the building as a symbol of federal judicial power. That symbol should not be an arrogant one. It should be one of a good neighbor and a respected branch of government. This means judges have to ask questions and to listen to the different segments of the community, including the bar, that may be affected and synthesize the information and use it in the design of the building.

Boston Courthouse Opens

At the festivities marking the opening of the Boston courthouse were (from left) Chief Judge Juan R. Torruella (1 ^st Cir.), Chief Judge Joseph L. Tauro (D. Mass.), Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Judge Douglas P. Woodlock (D.Mass.), and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

To maximize the benefit to the public of its prime location, the courthouse leaves more than half of its 4.5 acre site for public space.

Shaped by the slope of the 394-foot glass conoid, the Great Hall is an indoor extension of the Harborpark it overlookes.

Although the 27 courtrooms vary in size and purpose, they share the same form, material and detail.

Costumed characters from Boston's historic past helped Judge Sandra L. Lynch (1^st Cir.)(photo center) open the new Boston courthouse.