a spatial history of swedish rural courts 155 The second part of the building housed the administrative functions, and on the first and second floors were flats intended for a variety of court employees. The offices were positioned along corridors that linked them to a side entrance, often hidden from the more conspicuous main entrance. The link between the courtroom and the administration and flats usually took the shape of a simple passageway, or a room intended for deliberations. On the whole, the spatial design of the new buildings appears to have been better suited to their purpose than previous efforts. However, the chief ambition of all 1930s architects was to cut loose from Swedish deco-rum and let practical function rule design. Although court design in this era differed from the preceding one, it did not represent a distinctive architecture. Schools, town halls, and county offices are examples of types of buildings built according to the same disintegrated model. However radical the implementation, separation was neither new, nor unique to court buildings. Courts were part of an architectural vision that comprisedmany kinds of public institutions. That had also been the case with earlier courthouses. The courthouses of the 1950s have a discernible relationship between spatial configurations and practical needs. The careful distribution of actors and linking of different functions using corridors and passageways shows a far more elaborate analysis and building brief than before. Still, the architectural design did not start with explicitly articulated ideas of what a court should look like, or how it should be spatially organized; it still relied as much on tradition – expected spatial configuration – as on independent design. Perhaps this had always been the case when planning and erecting a new courthouse; perhaps the eighteenth-century layout that continued to have such an impact on court practice did indeed capture the basic needs of the court, with a vestibule for waiting, directly connected to a room ‘as large as required’. Separation and security
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