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All duties and work required for the care and custody of the Supreme Court are performed under the direction of the Marshal of the Supreme Court and the AOC Facility's Manager's Office, respectively. The Architect of the Capitol's (AOC) Supreme Court Jurisdiction is responsible for building and grounds maintenance, historic preservation, structural and mechanical care, alterations, design, and construction of new facilities. Above the court is the law library, an elegant room paneled in oak with carvings of appropriate emblems and allegorical figures. The plan carefully and deliberately separated the justices' working areas from the public, ensuring privacy and quiet.Īlthough the court room could have been larger, Taft wanted to preserve much of the intimacy that he liked in the court room in the U.S. Four spacious courts provided the interior with unexpected sources of light and air. The commanding central section was flanked by lower wings in the Ionic order. The facade was about 300 feet wide with a central temple-like pavilion fronted by a monumental portico of 16 Corinthian columns supporting an elaborate entablature. The building is a steel frame structure faced with white marble. Unlike the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building next door (a textbook example of the flamboyant Beaux Arts style), the Supreme Court was designed in a quieter, more reserved style now termed neoclassical revival. The design of the Supreme Court building achieved a balance between classical grandeur and quiet dignity, appropriate for the nation's highest court. Lower wings flank the central temple, and help relate it to the lower-scaled buildings of the nearby Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Reached by a great flight of broad steps, the portico of tall Corinthian columns gives the building a monumental entrance. The architect of the Supreme Court, Cass Gilbert of New York City, drew upon the classical Roman temple form as the basis for the Court's new building. Its new location was just across the street and was selected to remain near Union Station and thus convenient for out-of-town lawyers. Capitol where it had been meeting since 1801. Chief Justice William Howard Taft was behind the effort to provide the Court with its own building, moving out of the U.S.