While the new federal courthouse in Brooklyn has fewer frills than some other courthouses of recent design, it offers an abundance of window light, ensuring that jurors and defendants, lawyers and judges retain a sense of connectedness to the outside world and do not have to squint at each other across dim lobbies or courtrooms.

The courthouse’s doors opened in January to little fanfare, and to little criticism.

Today, an opening ceremony is scheduled at which several judges and officials from the General Services Administration, which oversaw the project, will speak.

While judges seem pleased with their new building, the prospect of recalling the trying process of getting the 14-floor-tower built may be less enticing than quickly returning to the 30 cases scheduled on today’s docket.

More than a decade ago, in the wake of construction of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in Lower Manhattan, a Senate committee report criticized Manhattan federal judges for putting an extra $103 million into that courthouse in the form of lavish extras such as private kitchens, showers, and fancy tiling. The federal judges in Brooklyn are not likely to face the same criticism. In an interview with The New York Sun, the judge serving as liaison to GSA for the project, Raymond Dearie, challenged the public to find any courthouse furnishing that was unnecessarily extravagant.

Instead, criticism regarding the courthouse project has generally flowed in the other direction, with judges leveling charges of misjudgments at GSA. In his 2003 report, the courthouse’s chief judge, Edward Korman, estimated that “at least $100 million of taxpayer dollars have been squandered by GSA” over the course of the project.

The poor decisions, Judge Korman wrote, started in 1998, two years before groundbreaking, when GSA lopped four floors and eight courtrooms from the blueprints. GSA made that decision after the bid for an 18-story building came in at more than the $200 million budget. But construction costs were rising, and by the time the project was redesigned, bids for the much smaller building ended up even further above budget.

Because four existing courtrooms from the old 1960’s era courthouse were demolished during construction, the net gain was 12 district courtrooms and nine magistrate courtrooms – all of which have already been filled, leaving no extra space for the next crop of judges. Those four floors, which never existed except on blueprints, have not been forgotten by the Brooklyn judges, and are likely to cast a shadow over the dedication ceremony today.

At the final tally, the construction cost $318 million, a spokeswoman for GSA said. The pitfalls included the mid-project bankruptcy of the contractor, J.A. Jones. At least two project executives pleaded guilty in 2003 to taking bribes in connection with the project before the judges for whom they were building courtrooms.

Each week, defendants, attorneys, litigants, spectators, and immigrants who have come to be naturalized make up the courthouse crowd. The courthouse that greets them has been built with them – and not only the judges – in mind, said architect Rafael Pelli, who joined his father, Cesar Pelli, in designing the building.

He noted the emphasis put on sunlight in the plans, which enters the courthouse primarily near the grand stairway at the entrance.

“We felt the public experience of many courthouses was rather mean,” Mr. Pelli said. “We were very aware that we wanted to make the experience of the courthouse as honorable and human as it could be. It’s a very intense environment often. People are awaiting judgments that will affect their lives dramatically. We felt the courthouse had to be a place that treats everybody equally.”