Door, Passage, Courtyard: Shifting Perspective in Gamla Stan

Sammanfattning: A historical study of the urban texture of Gamla Stan shows how public space has been appropriated for private needs. Streets were built over, closed off or turned into private courtyards, some of which have started to disappear, being completely internalized. This process of space appropriation was one-directional until the early 1900s, when the fear of losing structures across town made authorities create a precedent and revert the process by removing specific houses from the urban texture. This approach is based on a set of rules which I changed when making my project: the re-examination of all the hidden, internal, private spaces and their re-introduction to public life.    My set of criteria is rooted in a research of the elements that constitute the borderline in Gamla Stan's public vs private realm: doors, passages and courtyards. Based on that I  limited my  intervention techniques to the removal of three elements: fences, structures, and doors. The last one has two sub-categories "the removed wall" (turned into a new door) and "the removed lock" (opening an existing door). By establishing the parameters of my work, I tested this speculation in a specific case scenario - a cluster of four blocks on the west side of Gamla Stan. Using the rule I that a door must be the beginning of a corridor path that leads to an open court, and having the historical knowledge of the  location of past public spaces, I surgically removed later additions of lesser architectural or historical quality. The result of this is a new interconnected, accessible network. Until now one was restricted to walking along the streets and alleys, and around buildings in Gamla Stan. With this intervention people can walk through the buildings and into the reclaimed spaces, thus shifting one’s perception of the urban texture. The new alternative, total system of navigation turns solid into permeable/perforated. Alley City has become Corridor City.