A/PPOPOS, Atlas of Precious Publicly Owned Private Objects and Spaces

Abstract

A/PPOPOS, Atlas of Precious Publicly Owned Private Objects and Spaces, is a list of urban features, spaces, entities, objects and activities, such as ‘the windowsill’, ‘two missing cats’ and ‘a golden car’, which all share an alternating hierarchy between public and private. Similar to jewellery and other precious ornaments, these features, spaces, entities, objects and activities ‘wander’ between inside and outside, simultaneously or interchangeably between privateness and publicness. The text’s approach takes its inspiration from Privately Owned Public Spaces, POPS for short, where privately owned spaces are legally required to be open to the public, albeit contested because they often result from deals between city governments and private real estate developers in exchange for an exemption from regular building regulations (such as, for example, building higher than officially permitted). Consequently, these hybrid spaces, often referred to as pseudo-public, question values such as democratisation, ownership and freedom of expression.