Considerate accessibility – an upcoming postulate

The purpose of this essay is to examine what the key factors are to make a project with the intention to create accessibility to historic buildings a successful one. I also strive to identify the most common factors that make a project of such cause less of a success. In order to achieve an understanding of set purpose I have chosen to focus on The Swedish national property board. Their mission is to protect and preserve, while at the same time adapting the buildings to be useful today. Interviews have been performed with three informants who’ve all worked in projects with the aim to create accessibility. The intention of the interviews has been to, apart from answering said purpose, create an understanding of what needs to be done in order to create better circumstances for the continuing work of creating accessibility in historical buildings. To exemplify the process of said topic there are two examples presented in which the outcome differs, in spite of similar conditions. The first example is a castle in Kalmar where an elevator will be installed to create better accessibility and thereby improving the castles ability to be a successful attraction. The other example is Kungsgården in Lund, a house where a solution to the current problem of not being accessible, has yet not been found. The concluding discussion reflects on what has been presented in earlier chapters and debates what needs to be done in order to shift the focus from being if we can create accessibility in historic environments to how this can be done in a way that both consideration and accessibility is combined.Uppsats för avläggande av filosofie kandidatexamen i Kulturvård, Bebyggelseantikvariskt program 15 hp Institutionen för kulturvård Göteborgs universitet 2011:3