a town square:
– accessible to everyone at any time, freely
– can be used equally as a space for communication, meetings, fun, relaxation, trading, expressing political, social and other statements, making art
an archaeological site (open for tourists and visitors):
– accessible for everyone (on certain conditions: preserving the ruins, buying ticket, observing working time of the site)
– can be transformed (in communication and agreement with the organisation, that takes care about the site) into a stage for artistic event open to the large audience
I think that defining what public space is, we should first look at the basic dichotomy: public vs private (space).
My opinion is that in the terms of the urban science we can define “public urban space” as “an officially recognized by the local administration space in the respective city or settlement – streets, boulevards, squares, gardens, etc. – intended to be used freely, mutually, simultaneously, on equal footing, by the general public and also for the transportation needs (movement of vehicles). On contrary “private urban space” is accessible only for some people, not for everybody. There are also spaces that can be defined as private-public spaces: the shopping malls are good examples for that type of spaces.
Back to the “public space” definition, let me quote to the Bulgarian urban activist architect Pavel Yanchev
“… Public urban space has been a value in the collective life and identity of man since the emergence of the first settlements… .It is a material symbol of politics as a person’s ability to live in society, to unite around values and cultural benchmarks, to form institutions. and self-government … ”
And one more quote from another Bulgarian architect – Nikolay Davidkov: “… Streets, squares and green spaces form the public urban environment, which serves for communication between people, asserting rights and freedoms, sharing common responsibilities …”
