The United States Supreme Court Building, which opened in 1935, is the Neoclassical marble home of the nation’s highest court, located across from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.1Supreme Court of the United States. Building History For the Court’s first 146 years, the justices worked out of borrowed rooms inside the Capitol, most often the Old Senate Chamber. Chief Justice William Howard Taft pushed for a separate home, arguing that the Court needed physical independence from Congress to function as a coequal branch.2Architect of the Capitol. Supreme Court Building The justices held their first session in the new building on October 7, 1935, and have met there ever since.
Visiting Hours and Entry
The building is open to the public Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and closed on weekends and federal holidays.3Supreme Court of the United States. Hours and Directions Enter through the Northwest Door or Southwest Door on the plaza level, to the left and right of the main steps. The bronze doors at the top of the front steps have been closed to incoming visitors since 2010 for security reasons; you can exit that way, but you cannot walk up the 44 marble steps and enter.
An accessible entrance is on Maryland Avenue along the left side of the building, with limited accessible parking in the same area.4Supreme Court of the United States. Accessibility A café and gift shop on the ground floor keep the same weekday hours.5Supreme Court of the United States. Cafe and Building Amenities A first-floor checkroom and lockers hold personal belongings, which matters because electronic devices, bags, and similar items are not allowed in the courtroom. The checkroom closes 30 minutes after the Court adjourns, and you need to collect your items as soon as you leave the courtroom.6Supreme Court of the United States. Prohibited Items
Getting Into Oral Arguments
All oral arguments are open to the public, but seating is limited. The Court runs a pilot online lottery for reserved courtroom seats. Applications are due by 5 p.m. Eastern time four weeks before the session, and the Court emails applicants three weeks out to let them know whether they received tickets, were denied, or were placed on a wait list.7Supreme Court of the United States. Press Release – December 12, 2024
Some seats stay available on a first-come, first-seated basis. A line forms before each session on the sidewalk along East Capitol Street, and for high-profile cases people have camped out overnight. A separate “three-minute line” is for visitors who just want a brief look at the Court in session rather than sitting through a full argument.8Supreme Court of the United States. Visitor’s Guide to Oral Argument
Supreme Court Bar members follow a different path. Check-in at the Visitor Desk in the Lower Great Hall starts at 8:30 a.m.; show photo identification and receive a pass on a first-come basis. Bar members who don’t get a courtroom seat are sent to the Lawyers’ Lounge to listen over a loudspeaker. Professional business attire is required, and proxies cannot stand in line for Bar members.8Supreme Court of the United States. Visitor’s Guide to Oral Argument
Security and Conduct on the Grounds
Everyone entering the building goes through a magnetometer, and all belongings pass through an X-ray machine. Weapons, hazardous materials, and recording equipment are among the items prohibited inside.6Supreme Court of the United States. Prohibited Items
Federal law governs behavior on the building and grounds under 40 U.S.C. §§ 6131–6137. Discharging a firearm or explosive, setting fires, and making threatening or abusive speeches on the premises are all illegal.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 6134 Marching in processions, holding assemblies, and displaying flags, banners, or signs designed to publicize any party, organization, or movement are also prohibited on the grounds and inside the building.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 6135 Violations carry a fine, up to 60 days in jail, or both. If the violation involves more than $100 in property damage, the maximum jail sentence rises to five years.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 6137
What to See Inside
Past the entrance, the Great Hall is a wide corridor lined with monolithic columns of white Alabama marble, with busts of former Chief Justices along the walls forming a quiet chronology of the Court’s leadership.
The Courtroom is the working center of the building, where the nine justices hear argument from behind a raised mahogany bench.12Supreme Court of the United States. Building Features Its most striking feature is a pair of marble friezes running along the upper walls, sculpted by Adolph A. Weinman. The South Wall shows a procession of lawgivers from the ancient world, including Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius, and Octavian. The North Wall carries the timeline into the modern era with Justinian, Muhammad, Charlemagne, King John holding the Magna Carta, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, Chief Justice John Marshall, and Napoleon.13Supreme Court of the United States. Courtroom Friezes: South and North Walls The two walls together trace the development of law from roughly 3200 B.C. through the nineteenth century.
Two self-supporting elliptical marble spiral staircases, usually out of public view, each complete seven full spirals across five stories with 136 steps. The steps are cantilevered, anchored into the marble wall and resting on the step below, held in place by fit and pressure rather than mortar or steel.14Supreme Court of the United States. Spiral Staircases
The building also houses a dedicated library with more than 600,000 print volumes, 200,000 microforms, and a range of electronic resources, serving the justices, their clerks, Court staff, Supreme Court Bar members, members of Congress and their legal staff, and government attorneys.15Supreme Court Historical Society. How The Court Works – Library Support
What to See Outside
The west front, where visitors approach, is inscribed “Equal Justice Under Law.” Sculptor Robert Aitken designed the group of nine figures above the entrance: three central figures representing Order, Liberty Enthroned, and Authority, with Liberty holding the Scales of Justice across her lap. Aitken worked real people into the allegory, including Chief Justice Taft, Chief Justice John Marshall, Senator Elihu Root, architect Cass Gilbert, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, and Aitken himself.16Supreme Court of the United States. The West Pediment
The east pediment, inscribed “Justice the Guardian of Liberty,” was sculpted by Hermon A. MacNeil. Its central group features Moses, Confucius, and Solon, representing three legal traditions that shaped Western and world civilization.17Supreme Court of the United States. The East Pediment
Flanking the main steps are two large marble statues by James Earle Fraser: a female figure called “Contemplation of Justice,” representing the reflective thought behind fair decisions, and a male figure called “Authority of Law,” representing the strength to enforce them.
Marble is the defining material throughout. Vermont marble clads the exterior, chosen for its bright white color and weather resistance. Alabama marble lines the corridors and entrance halls above the basement, and crystalline white Georgia marble fills the four inner courtyards, with additional marble sourced from foreign quarries.1Supreme Court of the United States. Building History
How the Building Came to Be
Architect Cass Gilbert of New York City drew on the classical Roman temple form, producing a Neoclassical structure fronted by a monumental portico of 16 Corinthian columns reached by a broad flight of marble steps.2Architect of the Capitol. Supreme Court Building Gilbert chose a quieter, more reserved style than the ornate Beaux Arts design of the neighboring Library of Congress. The facade stretches roughly 300 feet wide, with a central pavilion flanked by lower wings in the Ionic order.
Construction ran from 1932 to April 4, 1935, at a final cost of $9,395,566, which came in under what Congress had appropriated.2Architect of the Capitol. Supreme Court Building The marble alone cost roughly $3 million.
Recent Perimeter Changes
Security around the building has shifted in recent years. A tall metal fence went up around the grounds after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. An eight-foot nonscalable fence was installed in May 2022 following the leak of a draft opinion on abortion rights, blocking access to the steps and marble plaza. That larger fence came down by August 2022 and was replaced by shorter three-foot metal barriers lining the perimeter, which have remained in place.