Edward W. Brooke Courthouse
The Courthouse, located in Boston’s Government Center occupies a triangular site adjoining Paul Rudolph’s unfinished state Services Center of the nineteen sixties. The requirement for urban continuity but also for establishing a separate identity for the Courthouse suggested a strategy of ‘urban collage’ which aligned building heights and boundaries yet permitted an independent iconography for the new building.
A tall colonnade traversing the site is the demarkation line and seam between the two buildings which share a small public garden. The columnar order, the vertical figural window arrangements and smooth stone façade of the Courthouse are in contrast to the horizontal terracing and rough concrete of the State Services Center.
The Courthouse has its main entrance where Merrimac Street and New Chardon Street converge on a small plaza and another one from the colonnade and shared courtyard at the center of the complex. At the interior of the building the spaces are arranged around the triangular 4-story high sky-lit atrium with transaction areas on two lower levels and eighteen courtrooms, judges’ chambers and expansion space on the levels above. All courtrooms have access to daylight and view through an arched clerestory window above the judges’ bench and corridor.