Dark Knight Trilogy

43. Senate House Library

Chicago, IL

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The grand interior of the Gotham City Courthouse goes well with the impressive exterior structure, but they are nowhere near the same building, nor even in the same country. The interior of the courthouse is represented by the Senate House Library and Foyer located in London. The Senate House acts as the administrative center of the University of London. With construction completed in 1937, the buildings height and art deco design raised equal appraisals and criticism as it towered at 210 feet in the center of campus. But what struck Director Nolan's eye was the Senate House Library, formerly known as the University of London Library. Occupying the fourth to eighteenth floors of the building it holds around three million volumes and thousands of journals and theses. It's within this library that Nolan created the courtroom where the most contemptible and dangerous criminals were dishonestly tried and determined not guilty or insane to avoid imprisonment. In Batman Begins Dr. Crane testified in the courtroom that once again another of crime lord Falcone's men is declared unfit for prison and should be transferred to Arkham Asylum. Following Dr. Crane out of the courtroom and into the elegant marble grandeur of the Senate House foyer, Assistant D.A., Rachel Dawes, challenges the psychiatrist's diagnosis.

The most crucial trial held in the courtroom was that of Joe Chill's petition for early release. Joe Chill, the murderer of Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce Wayne's parents, was offered early release after serving fourteen years in exchange for his testimonial against city's mob head Carmine Falcone. Bruce's parent's were inadvertently avenged outside the courtroom, staining the foyer's marble floor, but not by his eager hands. This scene is significant to the development of The Batman as Bruce struggles with the difference between justice and revenge. He admits his desire for Joe Chill's death and in response to Rachel's plea, "What chance does Gotham have when the good people do nothing" Bruce claims he is not one of the "good" people and took his leave of Gotham.

The foyer is shown again, though barely recognizable, in The Dark Knight Rises during "Gotham's reckoning" to symbolize the destruction and turmoil quickly spreading through Gotham. The once grand foyer now stands a shred of what it once represented, covered in wooden barriers and crumpled décor. Bane's bewildered associate, Stryker, is one of many to be seen being dragged up the desolate stairs of the ravaged foyer to stand trial in front of the kangaroo court judged by Dr. Crane, reappearing as a more embellished visage of his alter-ego Scarecrow.

Director Nolan didn't deface the entire Senate House building. The Crush Hall, found just outside the foyer, was lavishly decorated for Miranda Tate's masquerade charity ball in The Dark Knight Rises. Usually functioning as an event hall in real life, for weddings, conferences, and events, the Crush Hall was the least ambiguous element of the masquerade, considering who was in attendance. The exterior of the building was filmed at 638 South Broadway in Los Angeles, a vacant retail building for lease.