Bakom fasaderna : byggnadsarkeologiska sätt att fånga tid, rum och bruk

Sammanfattning: This dissertation is about the way buildings archaeology approaches historical buildings. The aim is to show how buildings archaeology can be renewed and developed. The motivation is my belief that buildings archaeology does not fully utilize the potential of standing buildings as historical sources, which is mainly due to the traditional outlook on buildings as two-dimensional objects. When three-dimensionality is ignored, the spatial dimension disappears from the analysis and with it a significant aspect of the building which is difficult to reconstruct and discuss afterwards. The main aim of the dissertation is to expose the limitations of the two-dimensional outlook, and simultaneously to conduct a critical trial of an approach that brings the three-dimensionality of a building into buildings archaeology. To assist me I use ideas borrowed from current research and methodological development in excavating archaeology and architectural theory. With Dalby monastery as a case study, I show that three-dimensional observation can bring us much further in our understanding of a building than the two-dimensional outlook of buildings archaeology. I apply this as part of a method whereby knowledge is extracted from a building in several stages. The method analyses three forms of expression in the building: material, spatiality and use, which enable the historical building to be peopled with users who leave traces that do not reveal anything with the traditional methods of buildings archaeology. To be able to apply the method it is essential to incorporate three-dimensionality as a variable in the analysis of the building.