An Improved Design For Justice Center

Don't call the redesigned Criminal Justice Center "scaled-down."

Though it is no longer conceived of as a hulking tower menacing City Hall, it will be one of the largest public buildings erected in Philadelphia in many years. Indeed, the only construction bigger will be the Convention Center to be built across the street about the same time.

The justice center will cover nearly two city blocks - from Filbert to Arch and Juniper to 13th Streets, and be 14 stories high. It will contain 70 Common Pleas and Municipal Court courtrooms; a 440-bed detention center; police- detention facilities; judges' chambers; court administration offices, and support facilities for the district attorney's and public defender's offices and the city prison system. Cost of the project will be $165 million, of which $110 million is for construction. It is a large-scale project by any standard.

Yet it is easy to see why people will think of the design as scaled down. The revised design courts anonymity. Such a big building cannot be wholly inconspicuous, but neither will it try to stand out. It will be close to invisible on the skyline, and quite reticent on the street as well.

This project, which in its earlier incarnation threatened to be one of the most obnoxious buildings ever to shadow Center City, is now almost touchingly eager to fit in.

That's better. Much better, in fact.

That does not mean that the building will be a really fine piece of architecture. It almost certainly won't be. But a city is more than great individual buildings. There is value in letting the pieces fit together and not trying to upstage prima-donna buildings, such as City Hall and the Masonic Temple.

The earlier design called for one massive tower, with a detention facility piled on top of a courthouse. This was not only unsuitable for its site, but it was an inefficent way of configuring the building. Putting a building full of cells on top of large courtroom spaces raises structural problems, and the need for several elevator banks eats up floor space.