Modesto’s new courthouse to have a far different look than its predecessors
The Stanislaus County Courthouse that’s set to start rising next year will follow two others with notable places in architecture history.
The annual Modesto Architecture & Design Week kicked off with a Saturday evening program at the State Theatre that showcased all three buildings.
The earliest was completed in 1872 on the same 11th Street block as today’s courthouse. It was in the Italianate style of Victorian architecture, with the ornate detailing typical of the era.
“It was a much-loved and respected building for a very long time, until the 1950s,” Bob Barzan, architecture curator at the Modesto Art Museum, told the audience.
The courthouse was designed by Albert Austin Bennett, who did these buildings for six other counties. They include Merced, where the 1875 courthouse is now a history museum. Bennett also helped on the State Capitol.
The Modesto building was demolished for today’s courthouse, completed in 1960. It was designed in the Bauhaus style, favoring simpler lines than the Victorians.
The building was designed by Mitchell Van Bourg, who had studied at the Harvard School of Design under Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius.
“This is our closest connection to the Bauhaus movement, because Mitchell was a student of Gropius,” Barzan said.
The courthouse block also includes the county Hall of Records on I Street. It was erected in a modern style in 1938 and connects to the current courthouse.
Today’s courthouse is too small for the caseload, said the Judicial Council of California, which is funding the $279 million replacement. The building also has poor access for disabled people and less-than-ideal ways of escorting inmates to court dates.
Construction on the new courthouse is scheduled to start in early 2020 and finish in spring 2023. It will be on the vacant block surrounded by Ninth, Tenth, G and H streets.
The courthouse will have eight stories on the Ninth Street side and three along Tenth Street. The 308,960 square feet will include 27 courtrooms and related services.
And it will have much more natural light than the current courthouse, lead architect Sean Ragasa said at the Saturday event. Glass will make up most of the 10th Street facade, and part of each floor along Ninth Street.
“If you can provide a connection to the outdoors, a view of the sky, if you are able to see light coming in the window, that can do a great deal in creating a more calm environment and hopefully make the judicial system function more effectively,” Ragasa said.
He works for the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, based in San Francisco.
Modesto Architecture & Design Week will run through Saturday, Sept. 28. Among the activities are self-guided tours of local landmarks, based on maps that can be downloaded at www.madweek.org.
Young people can use cardboard and other materials to learn about design from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday outside the Stanislaus County Library, at 16th and I streets.
This story was originally published September 24, 2019 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Modesto’s new courthouse to have a far different look than its predecessors."
