The custodian of memories: coronial architecture in nineteenth-century Melbourne

Abstract

Synopsis: Coronial architecture emerged as a distinctive genre of legal architecture in Australia in the late nineteenth century. A defining feature of this typology was that forensic and architectural techniques were interwoven in the design of the courthouse. The use of a hermetically sealed glass screen to separate the mortuary from the inquest room instituted new techniques for inventorying the dead. This article examines how architectural techniques affected the way in which the coroner cultivated technical, intimate and spatial relations between the living and the dead. The focus of the article is the construction of a purpose-built coroner's courthouse in the city of Melbourne in Australia in 1888. The design of the courthouse constructed a forum for the living to view and converse with the dead, which had as its aim the preservation of collective memory. The article thus proposes that courthouse architecture in the late nineteenth century linked the performance of the office of the coroner to the role of custodian of memories of the dead.