Inhabitable Bridges in a Privacy Perspective

The privatization of public land is a global challenge, as public land is for public services.

This long-lasting challenge of public policy and consequently of the architecture of public space reminds us the architectural type of inhabitable bridge as traditional walled-off paths and gated communities in Early Modern (EM) Europe, which mediated between public and private territories, as a city on itself, a dualism of connectedness and separation.

I shall, therefore, conduct a case study of the inhabitable bridges (IBs), which specifically will reveal the emergence of public privacy (PP) beyond the privatization of public paths in IBs, called ""Inhabitable Bridges in a Privacy Perspective"" (IBridge), focusing on EM Europe since the public privacy fostered.

Utilizing the two important examples in terms of location and size, the demolished Old London Bridge and the Pont de Notre-Dame in Paris, I will analyze how public policy developed these bridges in terms of public and private ownership and what the architectural and social effects of this development were.

The remaining challenges in the public realm require a focus on their historical background in EM architecture and policy to find concerns and values.

An analysis of the interconnectedness of the IBs' architecture and PP values will help us understand the impact and relations between political agents, spatial organization, PP attitudes in EM Europe.

In this way, IBridge recalls the challenges and values of the EM European public realm that cultivated distinct ways of providing PP that strongly linked to both the political and cultural sphere, drawing on earlier lessons for public comfort in urban scenes.

The Royal Danish Academy, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK), Center for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY) at Copenhagen University, and Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (GTA) at ETH Zrich serve as an excellent host to IBridge, as their focus is on architectural and privacy studies of EM European cases led by an interdisciplinary board and scholars.