Studies of Urban Squares suggests a specific and fresh take on agorology - the study of urban squares. The approach is one of recording everyday life and focusing on different ways to describe and investigate the public life and space of urban squares. The book comprises four empirical case studies of squares focusing especially on the urban material culture and spatio-temporal changes of these squares. The squares are all located in the metropolitan and transnational Öresund region in Denmark and Sweden, a region that has gone through extensive transformations during the last couple of decades. The compilation of cases suggest different ways of addressing spatio-temporal aspects of the everyday life of urban squares, and helps us to see how the everyday life of squares plays an important part in the production of public space.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
  • An agorology of everyday life
• 2 The main square revisited
  • A comparison of daily usage of Stortorget, Malmö, between 1978 and 2013
    • The empirical investigation of Stortorget
    • Impressions of Stortorget
    • Clusters, gender, and age
    • Basic activities in the square
    • Secondary activities and objects
    • Stortorget as an event venue
    • Concluding remarks
• 3 Discrete architectures
  • Rhythms of public eating in Värnhemstorget in Malmö
    • Värnhemstorget
    • Temporality
    • Rhythmanalysis
    • Rhythms and techniques
    • Rhythmnetworks
    • Non-human actors
    • Urban eating
• 4 Temporal agency and the gradual privatization of a public square
  • The renewal of Slussplan, Malmö
    • Architecture and the making of democratic subjects
    • Governmental co-optation of space
    • The multiple agency of spatial will
    • Branded densification or siting landmarks
    • A construction site’s visual and material culture
    • The type of agency you meet as a citizen
    • Temporal actors in government praxis
    • The (re)distribution of authorization
    • Time and agency in urban decision-making
• 5 The fragmentary demand
  • Superkilen in Nørrebro
    • World Exhibition as public space
    • Time–space à la carte
    • Objects as openers
    • Being-in-common
    • Spacing as meaning
    • Designed fragmentation
    • Designed confrontation
    • Intentional spacing
    • The fragmentary demand
• Acknowledgements
• About the authors