Dr Giovanna Guidicini (Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art)
City gates in the early modern period physically embodied the distinction between inside and outside, defending the commercial and administrative privileges granted to the urban space, but also reminding the inhabitants of their civic obligations and of the threatening potential of the unlawful outer space. This paper discusses the role of the Netherbow gate as border between two urban communities (Edinburgh and the Canongate, two "insides") rather than as marker of the more conventional inside vs outside distinction. It also follows the development of the civic space leading to the redefinition of the role and position of the border over time. Even when superseded and obliterated by urban growth, the liminal power of this border remains memorialised in the urban form.
Giovanna Guidicini is a Lecturer in Architectural History and Urban Studies at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art. Giovanna is particularly interested in the role of the urban environment as performative space during triumphal entries celebrated in Europe - and Scotland in particular - during the modern period. She has recently published a chapter entitled 'Imagining and staging an urban border: the role of the Netherbow gate in early modern Edinburgh', in Ashgate's publication "The Design of Frontier Spaces: Control and Ambiguity'.