Berks County Courthouse

The Berks County Courthouse is the heart of local government in Berks County. Located in Reading, it sits in the county seat, which also happens to be the fourth largest city in Pennsylvania. The current courthouse is the third one to be built in Reading and sits 275 feet above the streets, with picturesque landscape views of the city from the top floors. The building is open for public access and the entrance is found on Court Street. It encapsulates many different important aspects of local government, including the County treasurers office, many different courtrooms, as well as holding important judges, and other judicial figures of Berks County.

In 1931, word spread around Reading and surrounding Berks County of a new Courthouse that was to be erected where the second courthouse stood, which was built in 1840. It was met with opposition and discontent by many people at its beginning stages, however plans moved forward. On May 4th, 1931, the ninety-one year old building was wiped away to make way for the new. A month later, on June 6th, construction would begin on what is now known as one of the most important buildings in Berks County.

The new and improved Courthouse was designed by Miles B. Dechant, who was an architect and artist with engineering experience. He designed the building with a budget of roughly two million dollars (roughly $43,257,080 in today's money). He would go for a contemporary design, mixed in with touches of a growing architecture style at the time, Art Deco. There are only three other buildings within the city of Reading that have this particular style, being the Medical Arts Building, and Northwest Middle School. The construction of the courthouse was completed on August 15th, 1932. From the outside, the nineteen-story building has pillar-like features with windows stacked uniform up and down the length of the building. The corners of the very top of the building are notched, which was meant to catch the eye of pedestrians passing through Court Street and surrounding areas, and draw attention to the four eagles that perch on the upper face.

The inside of the building retains the beautiful Art Deco style, mixed with touches of the Classic Revival design (European), with some other intriguing features. For example, the elevators were made to be exactly like those found in New York's Empire State Building, the only difference being they rise and fall at half the speed. The Courthouse is home to the Berks County Treasurer's Office, sixteen different courtrooms, and a law library. Some of the courtrooms within the building also happen to be dressed up in classic "American historical themes". There was a weather bureau within the building that used to operate on the eighteenth floor, but has since moved and was replaced by a backup emergency call center.

In the mid-1900s, the top of the building was illuminated and used as a weather beacon. During the Christmas season, the traditional blue and red lights would be replaced with red and green to get people excited about the holiday. For a while, in the 50s and 60s, there was also a cross illumination, which was made possible by carefully placed spotlights behind windows on many floors. Due to issues with wiring and the inability to find the correct type of replacement light bulbs, the Courthouse went dark and no longer has the intriguing illumination.

John M. Kostecky Jr., another Pennsylvania architect, helped with the efforts of a restoration that took place in 1991. Since then, the building remains untouched and preserves the 1930s in its footprint. It is used Monday through Friday, following a traditional hourly schedule, and continues to be the heart of our local government.

A., Cindy. Fortunato, Fichthorn. The history and government of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Edition 4th. Reading, PA. Berks County, PA: The County Commissioners, 1993.

Thomas, George E.. Berks County Courthouse, 2012. Accessed July 7th 2022. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-BE8.

Webb, Joseph. Berks County Courthouse, GoReadingBerks. May 23rd 2020. Accessed July 7th 2022. https://goreadingberks.com/berks-county-courthouse/.