Generate Your About Us Content

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division) occupies several floors of the new Federal Building in Chicago’s Loop. Of this thirty-story building, designed in steel and glass by the late Mies van der Rohe, the Chicago Art Institute has said, “The commitment to order everywhere present is translated into an authoritarian and heroic presence.” Its lobby is designed “without recourse to historical vocabulary,” while the building itself, outside and in, lacks all adornment. The single exception is an electric carillon on the ground floor which in normal times plays popular and patriotic tunes, but during the conspiracy trial which is now in progress the carillon has been silenced. The revolving doors at each of the four corners of the lobby are each guarded by six armed marshals and visitors are asked to identify themselves as they enter. Purses and briefcases are opened and searched. Since the beginning of the trial pistols have been taken from four visitors.