Palaces of Justice or Places of Justice: The Dilemma of Post-Modernity

Abstract

If what is important for justice is to be ‘seen’ rendered, the place of justice has a major part to play in its administration. Rather than a presentation, it is something similar to a theatrical representation that takes place. The mise en scene through a particular ritual contributes, to the creation of a certain distance that ultimately sustains the judge’s authority. He becomes a symbolic figure, the symbolic Father. The place of justice for neo-Classical architects was a palace of justice, ‘speaking through allegorical and metaphorical forms’, contrasting the ‘temple illuminated by justice’ and the ‘dark places devoted to crime’. Ideas of power, authority and ritual are connected to the ‘speaking architecture’: the building, which imposes the solemnity of the state, illuminates this authority. In this paper I wish to discuss how the motivation behind architecture represents authority and how this myth is constructed. I particularly want to show that there has been a contemporary movement towards a ‘post-modern’ approach to the place of justice. I will examine what effects this new approach has on the important concept that justice has to be ‘seen’ rendered. If the original myth of authority was underlined by palace of justice architecture, then this must now give way for the construction of a new myth based on new foundations.