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Profile photo of Mattias Kärrholm

Mattias Kärrholm

Researcher

Profile photo of Mattias Kärrholm

Where can I find justice? : The changing relationship between the courthouse and the city

Author

  • Mattias Kärrholm
  • Eva Löfgren

Summary, in English

After a long period of being constructed as anonymous administration complexes, first instance courts are once again being built as emblematic elements of the city, designed by renowned architects and rising up on central plots adjacent to train stations, headquarter buildings and exclusive residential areas. This is happening at a time of centralisation, upsizing and property privatisation, and where European courthouses have radically decreased in number. The paper focuses on the changing relationship between the courthouse and the city as it has developed in the last decades, using Sweden as a case. Examining and comparing the fourteen new Swedish district courthouses built between 2000-2024, and the changes in their locations, we show how the territorial threshold between the court and the public space of the city is expressed and negotiated on different scales. Discussing aspects such as regional and local accessibility and visibility, as well as permeability and connectivity, we argue that the courthouse is gradually taking on a new role, where accessibility is increasingly monitored and specialised, and where the lawcourt as an object also has developed into a segregated territorial landscape, albeit often situated in a privileged location in the city.

Department/s

  • Architecture and Culture
  • Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
  • MECW: The Middle East in the Contemporary World
  • LTH Profile Area: Water

Publishing year

2025

Language

English

Publication/Series

Law, Culture and the Humanities

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Architecture
  • Human Geography

Keywords

  • Architectural design
  • City location
  • Courthouse
  • Urban design

Status

Epub

Research group

  • Architecture and Culture

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1743-8721