Abstract
Introduction
Architecture performs a communicative function in social life, expressing different values, ideas, and political discourses to its onlookers through the aesthetics of building design (Grinceri, 2016). In criminological research, prison architecture is a well-studied example. It has been shown to inspire the public imagination in matters of crime, harm, and punishment (e.g. Fiddler, 2011, 2022; Fredriksson, 2023; Moran and Disney, 2019; Moran et al., 2022). While criminology has detailed the communicative functions of the prison, the courthouse remains a less explored communicative site within the discipline. However, courthouses are communicative spaces rich in symbolism, both inside and on their facades (Bels and Branco, 2017; Mulcahy, 2010; Rosenbloom, 1997; Spaulding, 2012). They exemplify how architecture is “a product of society’s desires and needs,” expressing social values and idea(l)s (Rosenbloom, 1997: 463).
Courthouse architecture has been shown to both express and inspire idea(l)s about justice, punishment, and retribution (Bels and Branco, 2017; Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Merici et al., 2000; Rosenbloom, 1997; Spaulding, 2012). Studies of courthouse architecture have asserted that the design, as well as the shape, of such spaces “represents a sociological function,” since these spaces express how social activities are spatially framed and directed (Bels and Branco, 2017: 179). This assertion is in line with how the courthouse has been understood as a site that enforces scripts that govern acceptable behavior (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Levenson, 2007). In short, courthouses are spaces that express idea(l)s and frame activities centered on (in)justice. As such, their “ideologically enchanted architecture” both shapes and expresses public sentiments regarding (in)justice as well as (im)proper punishment (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022: 6). Viewed in this light, courthouses are charged spaces, heavy with symbolic meaning, standing as manifestations of both collective and individual desires for justice, retribution, freedom, and punishment (cf., Hörnqvist, 2021).
This article explores two courthouses in Stockholm, Sweden, viewing them as semiotic systems rich with socially meaningful symbolism (Chandler, 2022). As a site that spatially frames social and emotional life, the courthouse is a space where hope, dread, and frustration (for complainants, defendants, and witnesses) blend with mundane work-life stressors (for professional actors) (Flower, 2019, 2021; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022). Since Sweden’s courtrooms are open to the public, courthouses also conjure a sense of spectatorship—aligning these spaces with notions of theatre, where “parties act out a human drama” on the legal stage (Levenson, 2007: 3). Activities that are spatially and conceptually framed by the courthouse include encounters between victims and accused, since they have to tell their stories in front of each other and the judges in their roles as complainants and defendants. Sweden’s legal process centers a principle of orality, and places great importance on the retelling of events (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Smith and Skinner, 2012; Törnqvist, 2022). This positions people involved in a criminal trial within a liminal space, where the event that led them here is no longer happening in the present moment, nor is it yet resolved or left in the past (cf. Fisher, 2014). The courthouse frames activities in this liminal space
For complainants and defendants, the initial event is
Since events are not yet resolved when they are made the subject of criminal trials, the courthouse is a site of attempting to unveil truths and deciding on consequences (cf., Fisher, 2014; Hörnqvist, 2021). Evidence is examined, and parties must recount their experiences in order for judges to piece together an accurate timeline and truthful depiction of past events (Flower, 2019, 2021; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; McKay, 2019; Törnqvist, 2022; Weizman, 2017). The temporally liminal space of the courthouse is thus one between events, their remembrance and re-enactment (e.g. through video recordings), and their consequences. Trials embody both something lingering (the event) and something anticipated (its resolution). Viewed in this light, the courthouse is a threshold. It is a space, a social position, and a time in-between—where harm still lingers, and blame, innocence, and justice remain anticipated possible horizons that depend on the verdict (cf. Fisher, 2014; Fiddler et al., 2024; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Merici et al., 2000).
All the factors outlined above contribute to the atmosphere of courthouses (Turner et al., 2022; Young, 2019). These atmospheric qualities are at the core of the present study, which explores the socio-temporalities of the courthouse. Following the definition of atmosphere as “that which connects individuals within and to the spaces they occupy or move through” (Young, 2019: 766), and “something held in the air that, when brought together with people and place, sparks ‘affects’” (Turner et al., 2022: 4), this study sets out to articulate how social, temporal and spatial specificities coalesce to create courthouse atmospheres.
Studying the courthouse
While prison architecture has been explored in depth in terms of its communicative, and even haunting, functions (Fiddler, 2011, 2022; Fredriksson, 2023; Moran and Disney, 2019; Moran et al., 2022; Turner et al., 2022), courthouse architecture and atmosphere has received less such attention. However, considering courthouses as liminal spaces, previous ethnographic scholarship has discussed court as a “critical threshold between the street and the prison” (Russel et al., 2022: 153). This elucidates how courthouses produce a threshold in terms of punishment, between states of freedom and incarceration as well as in-between states of (in)justice (Ertür, 2022). Moreover, studies have shown that court proceedings position complainants in liminal states regarding their status as (non)credible victims (Heber and Fredrikssson, 2024). Courthouses thus frame encounters and activities where the stakes are high, and the outcomes often uncertain to those they most deeply concern (Bels and Branco, 2017: 179). In this vein, studies have also explored the “courtroom as a site of resistance” with regards to crimmigration (Haddeland and Franko, 2022: 552), further showing how courthouses are manifestations of power and subjugation relating to ideologically charged problems.
Furthermore, studies have shown how courthouse architecture can embody a range of social idea(l)s, showing variations of (in)justice and (un)fairness (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Haddeland and Franko, 2022; Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010; Russel et al., 2022; Stevenson, 2000). While some court spaces signal the authority of law and the specificity of the courthouse as something
Courthouse design has also been tied to anticipated outcomes, with modern, sterile buildings being associated with greater discomfort and a heightened perceived risk of wrongful convictions (Merici et al., 2000). Such studies indicate that court buildings “characterized by impressive dimensions and the predominance of cold materials and colors” are understood as unfeeling, unhomely, and unsympathetic by those whose interactions are framed by these spaces. Others have similarly stated that architecture displaying “excessive utilitarian tendencies” can “be read as brutal rather than humane” (Mulcahy, 2010: 144). In contrast, courthouses with a “residential look”, sporting “warm colors, large windows, [and] a large wooden door” have been found to elicit less unease and worry about wrongful convictions (Merici et al., 2000: 675). This offers vivid examples of architecture as atmospheric, inspiring both feeling and imagination where questions of law and punishment are concerned (Young, 2019). Similarly, studies have found that this atmospheric function of courthouse architecture can influence jurors (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022). Here, “ideologically enchanted architecture” was shown to contribute to how idea(l)s of reason and neutrality lend power to rape-myths as sense-making schemas (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022: 107, see also Lacey, 1995). This exemplifies how courthouses frame and direct the interactions and ideas that take shape within them (Bels and Branco, 2017; Rosenbloom, 1997). In short, certain stories make sense within certain atmospheres.
Similarly, studies have considered how courthouses are not merely the neutral sites “for the administration of ‘justice’” that they are generally understood as; rather, they are spaces that enforce the “ritualized production of socio-legal subjectivities” that lend themselves to punitive measures and ideologies (Russel et al., 2022: 155). As such, courthouses are the architectural manifestation of how social subjectivities and power hierarchies have been disappeared into a framework of neutrality (see Lacey, 1995). It follows that their atmosphere creates and contains specific, expected feelings and responses to these spaces (Turner et al., 2022).
Formulating calls for critical explorations of what courthouses are and could be (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Lacey, 1995; Mulcahy, 2010; Young, 2019), studies have shown how courthouses can lessen the intimidating atmospheres and normative conceptions of court as a space where white-supremacist, patriarchal notions become disguised as “neutrality” and unquestioned authority. For instance, courthouses can subvert these expectations by exhibiting an “intent to interweave indoor and outdoor spaces” through acoustics, windows, and ventilation systems that allow sounds, sights and smells of the outdoors to permeate an otherwise secluded space (Murphy et al., 2021: 102). As Murphy, Grant and Anthony emphasize in their Australian context, such coextensions of inside and outside can derive from and speak to otherwise oppressed populations’ (in their case, Indigenous populations) involvement in courthouse design and associated concepts of justice. This foregrounding of oppressed perspectives in building design shows an attempt at mitigating colonial damages (see also Mulcahy, 2010: 153–154). Such buildings thus both foreground and attempt to mitigate the idea of “courthouses and courtrooms as Western institutions of power that need to be disassembled” (Murphy et al., 2021: 106). In a Swedish context, similar structural designs can be seen in the prevalence of large glass panes that merge inside and outside environments. In this context, however, merging the inside with the outside cannot be read as derived from a wish to mitigate damage done to oppressed populations. Instead, transparent architecture manifests ideals of legal proceedings being transparent and open to the public (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022).
A haunting atmosphere
The concept of architecture being able to fuel public superstition and inspire stories about (un)just punishment has been explored at length in relation to prison and its communicative functions (e.g. Fiddler, 2011; Fredriksson, 2023). Extending this view to the courthouse emphasizes its liminalities as a threshold between pasts and futures, conflicts and resolutions, and between “the street and the prison” (Russel et al., 2022).
Following previous scholarship, this study considers atmosphere as “shared ground from which subjective states and their attendant feelings and emotions emerge” (Anderson, 2009: 78)—atmosphere, then, is not a subjective experience but a shared encounter with something inherent to a space. Complainants and defendants encounter the same atmosphere; however, it might conjure different subjective states and emotions due to their difference in positionality. Young asks what me might learn if we “think of criminal justice settings as atmospheric” (2019: 767), and this study considers that question by exploring the courthouse’s socio-temporal uncertainties. To do so, this study also draws inspiration from hauntology’s considerations of temporal disjointedness (Fiddler et al., 2022, 2024; Fisher, 2014). Hauntological courtroom studies have grappled with how spectres of past injustice haunt court. Through retellings of individual as well as collective traumas, and the projected recordings of past violence (e.g. Ertür, 2022; McKay, 2018), conjuring spectres are key to courtroom proceedings. Here, “the ghost is invoked soon after the indictment is read” (Ertür, 2022: 108), and questions of guilt simultaneously add to and detract from the potency of its haunting. In addition to the notion of spectres demanding their due, viewing the courthouse hauntologically is also a matter of considering it as temporally ambiguous. This latter point is what the present study draws inspiration from. The courthouse merges remembered pasts and anticipated futures (Bels and Branco, 2017; Fisher, 2014). This creates a temporally liminal atmosphere, directed both backwards and forwards. When people enter court as either complainants or defendants in criminal trials, the event that brought them there has ended—they are no longer involved in the act in question. However, the conflict lingers, as yet unresolved. As such, the courtroom both enforces and expresses a kind of liminal space, where the past and the future can be marked by haunting visions: of past violence as well as future (in)justice (Ertür, 2022). The past is dredged up, while the future remains uncertain (see Royle, 2003).
It is not uncommon for Swedish court cases to occur years after the event that precipitated them. This makes the temporal distance between the event and its possible resolution stretch in ways that can be difficult to predict for those involved, and which can create a sense of the court date being uncoupled from the reasons why it is taking place (Flower, 2021; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022). Studies of court interactions have largely focused on emotions and scripts that govern their expression (Bens, 2018; Flower, 2018, 2021; Fredriksson and Heber, 2023; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022). Arguably, these scripts and associated emotions are directly linked to how courthouse atmosphere creates certain social expectations (cf. Turner et al., 2022; Young, 2019). Within the atmosphere suffusing court proceedings, pasts can be (mis)remembered and be traumatically forced to the foreground of one’s perception (Ertür, 2022; McKay, 2019). Simultaneously, (un)desirable futures are uncertain, and depend on how the past will be made sense of by the unfeeling faces of judges and lay-jurors (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024); a process which itself is influenced by court atmospheres (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Merici et al., 2000).
For the purposes of this study, the courthouses’ temporal framing of events can be summarized as positioning interactions in a state of both
Methodology
This article draws on fieldnotes from visits to two courthouses: Stockholm and Södertörn district courts. The district court is the first instance of the criminal courts (followed by the court of appeal and the supreme court). Trials regularly take place over a year after the event they pertain to, and most district court verdicts are appealed (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024). Fieldnotes were gathered in the autumn months of 2022 and 2023, as part of a project undertaken by myself and Professor Anita Heber (see Fredriksson and Heber 2023; Heber and Fredriksson 2024). It is worth noting that we only observed trials pertaining to violent victimization. As such, the fieldwork underpinning this article centers the courthouse as a threshold between no longer being involved in an initial act of violence, but also not yet having arrived at a resolution to it.
The fieldwork was conducted in relation to ethnographic observations of fourteen court cases of varying length. The court sessions we observed lasted between an hour to a full day. Regardless, our visits to the courthouses themselves often lasted full days since these visits included ethnographic engagement with the courthouse as a whole. This included spending time in waiting rooms, corridors, and security controls in order to get familiar with these spaces’ atmosphere (Fredriksson & Heber 2023; Flower, 2021; Russel et al., 2022). Architecturally, waiting rooms and corridors exemplify where professional, private, and in our case public zones of a courthouse meet and merge since they are accessible to all (Mulcahy, 2010: 150).
During fieldwork, and in the re-examination of fieldnotes and photographs, this study considers the courthouse as a semiotic system (Chandler, 2022). As a semiotic system, courthouses are rich in symbolic detail structuring the activities that take place within the space structurally as well as atmospherically (Bels and Branco, 2017; Chandler, 2022). Movements, conversations, and even emotions all adhere to the scripted expectations of the courthouse (Flower, 2018, 2021; Levenson, 2007). The analysis in this article is rooted in considerations of the courthouse as a whole; as a semiotic system that consists of both strictly regulated courtrooms where questions of credibility and judgment are actualized and the surrounding, more ambiguous waiting spaces (Flower, 2021; Fredriksson and Heber, 2023).
While Sweden’s courtrooms are open to the public, observing criminal trials necessitated ethical considerations in order to reduce risks of adding harm by our presence as onlookers (Resnik, 2015). The project has been subjected to thorough ethical vetting and subsequent approval by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority with this in mind. 1 While this article draws on photographs of the courthouses, there are no photographs of specific courtrooms since photographing them is prohibited. All photographs in the article are my own, taken in the course of the fieldwork. While photographs center the visual over other senses, I have aimed to include images that capture the atmospheres of the places under study rather than merely show the space in optimal detail. This approach to photography attempts to blend the visual with other aspects of the sensory (see Herrity et al., 2021; McKay, 2019, 2024).
While studying court spaces, we noted things like how the space necessitates or precludes certain interactions, movements, or ways of speaking (e.g. hushed voices in open-plan waiting rooms, no running in the halls) (Flower, 2021). Furthermore, we noted how the spaces would frame activities through seating arrangements, awkward silences, delays, (un)spoken rules, (lacks of) ornamentation, and the use of technology. While other output from the project has focused in-depth on the specifics of complainants’ courtroom interactions (Fredriksson and Heber 2023), this article situates the courthouse as a socio-temporal threshold: clearly marked by both remembrances of what is no longer happening and anticipations of what has not yet transpired, on personal as well as structural levels (Ertür, 2022; Fiddler et al., 2022; Fisher, 2014).
Methodologically, this study is inspired by “ghost ethnography” (Kindynis, 2019: 25), which emphasizes “absence and the interpretation of material and atmospheric traces” (Kindynis, 2019: 29). For the purposes of this study, the ghost-ethnographical approach relates to how courthouses can be explored as spaces steeped in both lingering and anticipated events—they are spaces filled with past harms as well as both dreaded and desired future outcomes (cf. Fiddler et al., 2024; Fredriksson and Gålnander, 2020). This can be gleaned from everything from social interactions (e.g. whispered conversations in waiting rooms) to architectural design (e.g. sterile waiting rooms defined by their lacks).
In many respects, ghost ethnography aligns itself with sensory criminology’s methodologies by focusing on the not immediately evident, moving beyond the present, written, or otherwise visually evident. Following these ideas, the ethnographic approach of this study entailed a sensitivity to atmosphere and the sensory details that sustain it (see Herrity et al., 2021; Young, 2019). Practically, this meant being attuned to smells, sounds, temperatures, notable lacks and absences, and other aspects of the space than what can be seen and photographed. Moreover, to allow the atmosphere to suffuse the writing, I wrote large parts of this article on-site, on separate occasions from the initial fieldwork. This has allowed for both a re-examination of relevant impressions, and a prolonged exposure to the spaces’ sensory elements and how they can be experienced both as something to be attuned to and as something to be interrupted or distracted by. For instance, writing on-site elucidated how cold drafts or sudden sounds and echoes could intrude on attempts to focus (cf. Herrity, 2024; McKay, 2024). This experience is likely even more pronounced for parties preparing for court (such as by trying to remember something, planning ahead for what to say, or discussing strategy with their legal aides). While it is impossible to say precisely what impact this process has had on the text, writing on-site allows an analysis to be steeped in the atmospheres under study. This anchors interpretative work concerning atmosphere in said atmosphere. Moreover, this process elucidates new nuances of how research can be presented to readers, which is often overlooked in criminological conversations about research methodology. Through this process of writing on-site, this article attempts to add to the emerging focus on the senses for the development of critical and cultural criminological thinking (Brown and Carrabine, 2019; Herrity et al., 2021; Herrity, 2024; McClanahan and South, 2019; Russel et al., 2022).
The courthouses
As is standard in Swedish district courts, both courthouses explored here have security checks at their entrances. Going through these is akin to arriving at an airport, with the same needs for undressing, unpacking, scanning, and rearranging our coats and belongings on the other side. This closely monitored movement from outside to inside can be read as a symbolic passage, entering into the specific structure (social and architectural) of legal space (Chandler, 2022; Mulcahy, 2010). After this, similarities between the two courthouses quickly diminish. While this is not a comparative study, considering both courthouses side by side enables a deepened engagement with how architectures can “speak to,” and structure the speech of, those who pass through them (Flower, 2021). Instead of comparing these buildings, this article seeks to unveil how they embody values and structure activities tied to notions of (in)justice, harm, and punishment (Bels and Branco, 2017; Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010; Russel et al., 2022).
Stockholm
This courthouse is located one subway stop away from the city center, and lies in the middle of a park surrounded by cafés. The courthouse is an amalgamation of different architectures, with the main building being from the 1910’s, and remodels and expansions occurring intermittently until 2009. Part of these renovations have turned outside spaces into inside spaces, as evidenced by the main waiting area being between rough facades, under a glass ceiling. This space has both floors and half-floors, with some bits connecting while others do not. At the end of our fieldwork, we are still not certain how to best navigate the entire courthouse. The courtrooms are varied, with some having extravagantly painted walls and chandeliers while others look like barren offices with muted colors and yellowish lighting.
Södertörn
Södertörn is a suburban area outside of Stockholm. Next to the courthouse there are a couple of supermarkets coupled with a large parking lot. There is a nearby train station and bus stop, but no subway. This building was constructed in the early 2000’s, and is reminiscent of an airport in design. The long building has two stories, both oriented along a central corridor. All rooms are along the back wall, while the front-facing wall is made of glass and looks out over the supermarkets’ parking lot. All the courtrooms have the same, anonymous design with muted colors, gray accents and pale wood paneling. Throughout our fieldwork, we note that most of them have cold drafts. We also note that professionals are comparatively less strictly dressed here than at Stockholm district court, which adds to the stereotypical difference between city and suburban atmospheres (Chandler, 2022).
At the threshold
The first thing that became apparent when first visiting Stockholm district court was that we would need time to learn how to navigate it. Finding our way turned out to be a repeatedly labyrinthine experience. Having spent quite a few hours in its halls, both during fieldwork and writing up this study, I have overheard several confused conversations along the same lines. In the main waiting space, where the cafeteria is located, there is a map of the three main floors (1; 1,5; and 2). However, this waiting area is rather out of the way when heading to most of the courtrooms. These maps, moreover, include large, blank spaces to note inaccessible parts of the building—emphasizing the separation of public and exclusively professional spaces (cf. Mulcahy, 2010: 150).
In Stockholm district court’s many hallways, sounds echo among the stone walls as sessions are called, reminiscent of garbled conductor messages at train stations—and often proving about as difficult to understand. Meanwhile, entering Södertörn is more akin to entering a small airport (see Figure 7). The waiting areas are all open-plan, with a glass wall on one side and courtrooms on the other, all along the wide, straight hallways of both floors (e.g. Figure 2). While Stockholm is a maze of parts added and changed throughout the years, Södertörn has the air of an airport waiting lounge—straightforward and meant for transitions. The spaces thus create different atmospheres in terms of momentum, pace, and orientation. Stockholm is a historical building, and old details are on display to foreground this presence of the past. Södertörn, on the other hand, has nothing to dwell on. Instead, its design breathes anonymous neutrality, built to communicate efficiency in moving through it (and in moving on with the cases at hand). While it is bright and streamlined, it lacks personality. It expresses the excessively “utilitarian tendencies” found elsewhere to “be read as brutal rather than humane” (Mulcahy, 2010: 144). Stockholm, on the other hand, is brimming with artistic details, but the combination of a maze-like structure and old, often dark, stone and wood materials gives its corridors a gloomy, authoritative atmosphere heavy with past presences (Bels and Branco, 2017; Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010; Rosenbloom, 1997; Spaulding, 2012).
Encased in glass
In both Stockholm and Södertörn, glass is central to the architecture (see Figure 1, 2, and 4). In Stockholm, a former courtyard has been encased in glass, turning outside facades into a decorative element of the indoor space (Murphy et al., 2021). Effectively, the old uses of the space remain as a phantasm within the new, alluding to a past that has become incorporated into the present (cf. Fiddler et al., 2022). In Södertörn, the front-facing wall is made almost entirely of glass, giving the corridors a full view of the outside world—and the outside world a full view of the waiting spaces within the courthouse. Notably, the glass designs are only visible from the inside of Stockholm district court, while they are a key feature of the exterior in Södertörn. Both of these glass-focused architectural designs are from the early 2000’s, and serve to merge the inside with its surrounding outside, making the atmosphere of these spaces change with the seasons as well as with the weather (Bels and Branco, 2017; Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Murphy et al., 2021).
A sunny day inside Stockholm District Court, overlooking the cafeteria. Under the glass ceiling, what used to be a courtyard has been turned into indoor space.
Södertörn. Stairs to the upper floor corridor, showing the floor-to-ceiling glass wall running along the right side of the building. All courtrooms are on the left-hand side, with waiting areas along the right-hand side window-wall.
While a sunny day could have us squinting to write fieldnotes, being in these courthouses on rainy days brought an entirely different atmosphere. On such occasions, we could hear the rain loudly smattering against the glass in the otherwise muted waiting spaces. The lack of natural light made the yellowish interior lighting much more noticeable, while the rain emphasized the chill present in many parts of the buildings. One summarizing fieldnote from Södertörn notes that “the air is cold—so is the atmosphere”. Moreover, while the main waiting area in Stockholm has a glass ceiling that lets the weather impact the atmosphere, Södertörn is a low, wide building. As such, potential sunshine rarely reaches deeply into it. Instead, sunshine can provide a contrast between the bright outside and the undecorated, airportesque interior (see Figures 2 and 4). While the glass wall merges in- and outsides in some ways, in others, it also emphasizes the contrasts between being
Furthermore, the prevalence of glass in the design of these buildings communicates ideals of transparency. As ideologically charged architecture (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022), the use of glass panes as key features of courthouses expresses Swedish idea(l)s of being an open society, with high degrees of transparency vis-à-vis the public (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022). The public being allowed to visit court proceedings is one example of how this is expressed as “spatially framed activities” within courthouse interactions, not just in its architecture (Bels and Branco, 2017: 179, see also Heber & Fredriksson 2024; Törnqvist 2022). Prioritizing openness and the learning opportunities this provides (e.g. courts are often visited by schools) is thus expressed both through form and function.
In Swedish district court, principles of orality are central to proceedings (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Törnqvist, 2022). As such, both complainants and defendants present their own stories, in their own words, in front of the judges (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Smith and Skinner, 2012; Törnqvist, 2022). Preparing for such encounters in waiting spaces encased in glass connotes
While glass lends itself to metaphors of transparency, enclosure, and spectatorship, it also lends itself to the exploration of reflections. In court, concerned parties are asked to recount what happened, generally starting with the victim. If there are photographs or videos of e.g. assaults or injuries, these are shown first. These reflections on, as well as of, what happened are meant to shed light on events, thereby facilitating some measure of clarity, closure, punishment, and/or retribution (Fredriksson and Heber, 2023; McKay, 2019). Moreover, previous studies have found that courthouse architecture reflects how harsh and (un)justified people think legal punishments are or will be (e.g. Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Merici et al., 2000). For instance, courthouses lacking ornamentation and ‘homey’ details can contribute to feelings of unease, which can also be said of architectures that conjure a sense of scale. Both of these designs thus express unfeeling authority (Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010). Furthermore, cold colors have also been shown to contribute to such feelings of unease (Merici et al., 2000). This can be used to understand the use of glass walls and ceilings in the courthouses explored here, as well as the presence and absence of ornamentation between the courthouses. While glass boundaries blur the inside with the outside, this also allows reflections of light and shadow to shift the spaces’ atmospheres. When it is dark outside, looking in becomes far easier than looking out. Inside, visitors are met with a reflection of their own faces and the surrounding indoor space. In relation to this, it is worth noting that Sweden’s district courts drastically reduce the number of cases they handle during the summer, while Sweden is notoriously dark in winter (for instance, the Stockholm area had 13 hours of sunlight in November of 2023 according to the daily news, DN). Wintertime thus largely turns Södertörn’s waiting room into a hall of mirrors, rather than an outside view.
In both spaces, the floors provide an additional reflective surface, with (natural and artificial) light bouncing off of polished stone and linoleum. It is not just the light that reflects and refracts throughout these spaces. Sound, too, changes throughout the space. Owing to these spaces’ large expanses of glass and stone, sound reverberates and distorts throughout the courthouses. These echoes will be explored in the next section.
Sounds and silence
The courthouses explored here are marked by their hushed atmospheres, and by how their silences become interrupted. While no signs encourage silence, there is an expectation “in the air” that noise be kept to a minimum (Turner et al., 2022). While Stockholm district court’s cafeteria space is open to the outside through its high glass ceiling, most of its other waiting areas are darker and less airy (See Figure 3). Voices (both recorded and live) break their silence, and echo through the corridors and around corners in ways that often muffle or distort what is being said. In these cathedral-like acoustics, everything from nervous whispers between legal representatives and their clients to the laughter of a visiting high-school class becomes distorted and displaced through echoes. This makes it difficult to ascertain where sounds are coming from, as well as how close they are.
Stockholm. A more secluded waiting room, directly outside one of the courtrooms. In the fieldnotes, this space is described as “feeling like waiting in an old train station—especially since announcements to enter the courtroom begin with nearly the same melody as that for train departure announcements”.
Södertörn. One of the several identical waiting areas, overlooking the road, two supermarkets and a parking lot, apartments, and a train station in the distance.
Hushed conversations between legal professionals and parties often pause to listen for announcements from the speakers. Sitting in one of Stockholm’s waiting spaces, we noted how often we had to strain in order to listen out for relevant information about the case we were there to observe, as well as how often the information offered over speakers was irrelevant to us. For parties in criminal trials, these spaces actualize a need to pay attention to, and sometimes decipher, frequently sounding yet rarely relevant calls over the speaker system. This conjures atmospheres of both anticipation and confusion (cf. Herrity et al., 2021; Herrity, 2024). We noted the same aural problem at Södertörn, where the central corridors turn everything into one big waiting area. Here, we were also surprised to be approached by a legal defence attorney during our first visit, who mistook my colleague for the defendant. This was when we first realized that there is often no face-to-face contact between defendants and their defence prior to court proceedings. This adds another layer of uncertainty to courthouse waiting spaces, since key actors have to find each other in an already tense time and place, and then prepare in what little time they have together.
As the findings so far show, these waiting spaces feel and sound like spaces of anonymity and transition, not unlike train stations or airports, but with the added tensions of as yet unresolved conflicts and uncertainties (cf. Royle, 2003). Such tensions cannot “always be resolved and are present to different degrees in all courts” architecture (Mulcahy, 2010:151). While courthouses are built for their own specific purpose, they are marked by these mirror images of transitional spaces (Royle, 2003). This emphasizes how the courthouse can be construed as a transitional space in its own right: transitioning people from one status to another (e.g. citizen to convict; complainant to victim) (Hörnqvist, 2021). As a threshold, the courthouse embodies tensions stemming from the hitherto unresolved and unknown yet already dreaded and/or anticipated outcomes looming ahead (Bels and Branco, 2017; Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Fiddler et al., 2024; Merici et al., 2000; Russel et al., 2022). The next section delves further into how the lingering as well as the anticipated are manifested architecturally.
Absence and presence
On the top floor, Stockholm district court is home to a statue called Kopparmatte (see Figures 5 and 7). There is no plaque to explain his presence, which gives him an unexplained and thereby somewhat out of place air. Facing a waiting area (where much of this article was written), he stands before a mural depicting a town square. The statue is a replica, and the mural serves to situate the replica in the context of where—and when—the original stood. The original was positioned atop the flogging pole in said town square, between 1647 and 1776. His original purpose was to symbolize punishment to onlookers and to thereby deter crime among the public and add to the spectacle of punishment.
Replica of Kopparmatte, stood in front of a mural of Old Town, Stockholm, that shows where the original statue stood atop its flogging pole (see left edge of mural).
At first glance, Kopparmatte seems out of place as well as out of time in this corridor. However, his presence in the courthouse functions as a reminder of violent punishments long-since past—situating contemporary legal processes and punishments as humane by comparison (cf. Mulcahy, 2010). However, the statue also speaks to punishments yet to come. Embodying the anticipated, the statue can provide both a threatening visage to those accused and a promise to victims of being avenged (cf. Merici et al., 2000). Since Kopparmatte can be deschiphered in different ways (cf. Turner et al., 2022; Young, 2019), he adds to both the social and the temporal ambiguity of the atmosphere.
The echoes of a long-gone flogging pole in the middle of the contemporary courthouse speaks to past, present, and future idea(l)s of (in)justice and desires for punishment (cf. Hörnqvist, 2021). This statue, and its reach into a historical past, can also be read as in line with how “courthouses have symbolized the power of law” to enable and enforce oppressions tied to “racial and gender hierarchies” over time (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022: xxii). Viewed in this light, the statue serves as a reminder that while the forms of legal punishment have shifted, the fact of underlying power hierarchies is still at play. This speaks to how the symbolism of courthouses embodies the “symbolic weight and majesty of the law” (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022: 6).
The pose and position of the statue echo idea(l)s of punishment as expressions of justice as well as injustice, since the past is presented as something
To summarize, Kopparmatte embodies violent, past punishments as well as the awaited judgments and subsequent punishments of the many cases awaiting trial next to him on a daily basis. Through this ambiguity, his presence emphasizes how while the shapes of punishment have shifted, underlying social desires to punish in order to enfore idea(l)s of justice remain (cf. Hörnqvist, 2021).
Kopparmatte is far from the only symbol of violent conflict and/or violent resolutions thereto that are displayed in Stockholm district court. There are painted and sculpted examples throughout the building. These include imagery in the floors and ceilings, as well as gargoylesque sculptures both on the building’s façade and inside the corridors (see Figure 6). While conjuring and contrasting the historical past, these details also set the present scene. As such, they frame court proceedings and subsequent judgments as a theatrical spectacle (Levenson, 2007), by creating a stage and providing props that invoke idea(l)s of conflicts and (in)justice—exemplified by Kopparmatte and by how “nothing says calm conflict resolution like fighting cats and dogs” (Fieldnote regarding Figure 6), as well as the painted ceiling in an upstairs corridor depicting Lady Justice, or the outline of executioner’s axes in the floor tiles of Kopparmatte’s corridor (see Bens, 2018; Chandler, 2022; Levenson, 2007).
Stockholm. One of several decorations indicative of violent conflict and/or violent resolution interwoven in the building design.
Upstairs corridors in Stockholm (left) and Södertörn (right). Waiting areas are dotted along the walls. Also showing Kopparmatte seen from the corridor, facing a collection of benches for visitors.
Contrariwise, Södertörn district court is marked by its clear and seemingly deliberate absence of ornamentation. Apart from a few plants and a vending machine, it is all blank space. This building is all function. In this sense, it embodies idea(l)s of neutrality with clinical precision (Lacey, 1995; Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010). Documenting what
Whether through an absence of compassion or a presence of past ill-will, the courthouses explored here are suffused with atmospheres of administrative unfeeling and punitive spectacle. With their both formally and informally regulated silences, reflections, and transparencies, they spatialize the liminal position between harmful events and their resolutions. As a threshold between the two (cf. Russel et al., 2022), courthouses can both shorten and prolong the space between these two occurrences. As is common in Swedish court cases, most of the court cases we observed concluded without a delivered verdict. Instead, a date (weeks in the future) was announced, when a verdict would be reached and made available to the concerned parties (as well as to the public). As such, complainants and defendants can leave the courthouse in a similar state of uncertainty as they entered, still hovering between a past event and a future outcome. This future outcome, moreover, decides people’s future status as citizens; innocence, guilt and blame hang in the balance (Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Hörnqvist, 2021). Courthouses thus spatialize uncertain journeys between
The courthouse as a socio-temporal threshold
While previous studies have explored court as a “critical threshold between the street and the prison” (Russel et al., 2022:153), this article went on to explore the courthouses as a threshold between the
In the courthouse, both what happened in the past and what the future holds are debated (Bens, 2018; Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Heber and Fredriksson, 2024; Levenson, 2007; Mulcahy, 2010). In this socio-temporally liminal space, defendants and complainants are positioned
While trials carry emotional echoes of the past through re-examinations of what (might have) happened (Ertür, 2022; Fredriksson and Heber, 2023; McKay, 2019), the courthouses explored here were also marked by echoes in terms of their physical structure: Whispered conversations become pulled out of shape as they reverberate between stone and glass; hurried footsteps emphasize how transition from one place to another is something both social and physical (e.g. from innocent to convicted); and announcements from the courtrooms become distorted and unintelligible if you happen to be out of position—often making wounded and accused parties wait near each other. All in all, the soundscape of these courthouses is permeated by hushed, yet persistent sounds of nervous anticipation (cf. Fisher, 2014; Flower, 2021; Herrity, 2024; Herrity et al., 2021). This shows how sensory analysis can add to the understanding of courthouse architecture and atmosphere (Mulcahy, 2010).
Both within and between the courthouses explored here, several aspects of “ideologically enchanted architecture” (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022: 6), where “parties act out a human drama” were observed (Levenson, 2007:3). With its clean, undecorated spaces, Södertörn is an environment that encapsulates both its visitors and the cold, calculating neutrality that legal justice aspires to (Lacey, 1995; Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010). Its glass walls embody idea(l)s of legal transparency, while the inside’s similarities to an unornamented airport gives it an air of transition—people pass through here on their way to a life after their trial. As a space for awaited, anticipated resolutions, restorations, and punishments, the courthouse is a space between states of being, where (un)just actions and outcomes are yet to be defined and decided on in the legal sphere. Meanwhile, Stockholm’s castle-like structure radiates authority, and comes across as a labyrinthine place filled with symbolically rich art that expresses both violent acts and their violent punishment. Both the art and the way the building complicates navigation of its disjointed, winding hallways and staircases all add to an atmosphere of theatrical spectacle (Bens, 2018; Levenson, 2007; Mulcahy, 2010). The decorations display past (in)justices and violent authority, while navigation actualizes issues of locating where to go in what is an already stressful situation for wounded and accused parties. These labyrinthine layouts foreground as well as heighten the uncertainty that permeates the courthouse, by spatializing said uncertainty and requiring people to move through it.
Summarily stated, Södertörn is a flat, elongated corridor, whereas Stockholm is a tall and winding tower. Reading these courthouses as semiotic systems has shown how they embody ideals of legal transparency on one hand, and required submission in order to navigate both excessively utilitarian and labyrinthine legal spaces on the other—socially (i.e., the rules and regulations that govern court behavior) as well as physically (cf. Flower, 2021; Fredriksson and Heber, 2023; Mulcahy, 2010). Moreover, both symbolically dense art and its complete absence create atmospheres of unwavering authority (Mulcahy, 2010). At Södertörn, its neutrality was signalled through the lack of objects to occupy the mind or create any sense of safety. At Stockholm, the objects on display communicate an adherence to old, punitive forms of authority and retribution (cf. Hörnqvist, 2021). Be it through the absence of ornamentation or through the presence of cold stone and metal depicting painful punishments of the past, these spaces communicate an absence of empathy towards those whose fates are to be decided within them (Merici et al., 2000; Mulcahy, 2010; Rosenbloom, 1997; Russel et al., 2022; Spaulding, 2012). While it is tempting to describe this as an atmosphere lacking in empathy, doing so would imply that empathy was supposed to be there in the first place. Empathy, however, is something that the concept of legal neutrality has been critiqued for actively avoiding (Lacey, 1995). It follows that spaces embodying legal neutrality rarely exhibit warm or welcoming atmospheres (Mulcahy, 2010).
The notion of neutrality actively invisiblizes subjective differences between groups into a pseudo-objective collective. This supposed collective, in turn, is based on white-supremacist, patriarchal standards that have been made invisible at the heart of Western normativity (Lacey, 1995). Rather than seeing court spaces as lacking warmth, then, the semiotic system they are part of is one where warmth is deliberately kept apart from idea(l)s of legal neutrality. This absence contributes to the atmosphere of these spaces, as a present, keenly felt aspect of what it means to be neutral—as a space or as a legal ideology. As such, courthouses exemplify how both absences and presences are potent sources of information when exploring the atmospheric qualities of socio-politically important spaces (cf. Ertür, 2022; Fiddler et al., 2024; Kindynis, 2019; McKay, 2019; Young, 2019).
This article has shown how courthouse atmosphere can be understood as a semiotic system that is more than the sum of its parts (Andersson, 2009; Chandler, 2022; Mulcahy, 2010; Young, 2019). Exploring it as such has unveiled how social, spatial, and temporal layers coextend, making courthouses sites of socio-temporal dynamics that navigate both the personal and the structural. Personally, the courthouse merges past events and future outcomes through processes of remembrance, uncertainty, and judgment. Structurally, the courthouse blends old and new punitive logics and socio-political hierarchies through its design as well as its regulations (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Grinceri, 2016; Merici et al., 2000; Spaulding, 2012). In some cases, this merger conjures past punishments through art and architecture, while in others cold, unornamented designs help to invisiblize socio-political hierarchies into notions of impartiality (cf. Fiddler et al., 2022, 2024; Lacey, 1995; Merici et al., 2000; Rosenbloom, 1997; Spaulding, 2012).
To elucidate atmospheres of criminal justice spaces is to unveil such spaces “as
Through exploring courthouse atmospheres and their meanings for social life (Andersson, 2009; Bens, 2018; Young, 2019), we can see how pasts and futures (re)shape meaning in the present, how subject positions become (re)defined in these atmospheric contexts, and how unjust social structures are disappeared into the expectation and idealization of legal neutrality (Ertür, 2022; Lacey, 1995; Turner et al., 2022). As this study has shown, coextensions of personal and structural pasts, presents, and futures are a core feature of courthouse atmospheres. It follows that these atmospheres are home to spectres of myriad personal harms as well as those of large-scale structural injustices (Ertür, 2022; Fiddler et al., 2022)—all demanding their due, in due time.
This article’s findings add to criminological knowledge about courthouses’ socio-legal forms and functions. By situating the courthouse as a site of socio-temporal tensions which have been effectively invisiblized by a framework of legal neutrality (Duncanson and Henderson, 2022; Lacey 1995; Mulcahy 2010), it can be considered as a threshold between interlocking personal and structural
Footnotes
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