Forget The Trial! What’s Up With The Building?

Libby Copeland is covering the trial of accused D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammed in Virginia Beach. It’s a fascinating legal spectacle, but Copeland can’t get her mind off the architecture of the city’s judicial complex. It’s not that it’s ugly, exactly. But it’s not very judicial, either. “Is there such a thing as too much brick? Can beige and brown — the colors of all the signs here — be considered colors of oppression with their monotony, ubiquity and utter authority? … In short, this is a place where people bring their lunches from home. A place unfriendly to feet. A place that ceases to exist after dark.”