Courtyards in Aarhus

I spent a lot of time noticing courtyards when I was in Aarhus.

In the courtyard of the hotel

The old city is full of buildings that have little passages, just big enough for a single car to get through. Some of them lead to spaces that are completely functional and uninspiring; but others have been turned into little gardens, or restaurants, or other interesting spaces.

One of the cooler courtyards

Looking out onto the street

I find this quite unexpected, and last night a question hit me: Do we have courtyards of this kind in the States? Is there anywhere in the U.S. a tradition of residential architecture that puts buildings together in a way that creates a common, enclosed space? I think not.

Looking into another courtyard

There's a restaurant!

In Philadelphia, we have row houses that have little private backyards, if you're lucky; but I don't know any row houses or apartments that form up into courtyards. Rittenhouse Square, and the other three parks that were part of William Penn's master plan for the city, have a bit of a European feel to them now: Rittenhouse is surrounded on all sides by tall apartment buildings, which gives it a very nice feel in the evenings-- lots of twinkling light through the trees, and a reassuring sense that the park is an active, visible public space-- but originally they must have been more like town greens transplanted to cities.

An entrance to something more private-looking

Chicago's apartment buildings have a little green space in front, and some very small courtyards sunk into the larger buildings for ventilation (thanks, Progressive Era housing reformers!), but again, the buildings tend to back onto alleys, rather than each other.

Looking from the street

A winter garden-turned-showroom

I haven't encountered any courtyards in Boston or New York, but you figure if they're anywhere, they're there.

The one place you see something like courtyards is in colleges, particularly dormitories built during the early 20th-century mania for Gothic architecture.

The entrance to this courtyard is on the right

Yet another little store

The closest thing we've got in America are certain kinds of commercial spaces, and arguably hotel atriums ("Courtyard by Marriot," that sort of thing). Do New Urbanism architects use them? Does Santana Row, for example, have them, or does it just direct public activity onto streets?

Doubtless there's some deep lesson here about American versus European notions of space, property rights, and consequent impacts on informal cooperative behavior or attitudes to traditional as opposed to formal rights. Someone with the combined instincts of Robert Darnton and Edmund Bacon could do something really interesting.

Technorati Tags: aarhus, architecture, denmark, travel

Comments

[Scott]

I am a landscape architect doing a little research on courtyards, city squares etc. and ran across your site with the photos from Aarhus. Do you have a larger file of the photo titled, "One of the cooler courtyards" that shows 2 white cars parked in a paved courtyrad with a few trees? I'd like to see a bit more of the detail. Thanks very much.