Spatialities of cultural landscapes: towards a unified vision of Spanish practices within the European Landscape Convention

ABSTRACT

Inspired by the European Landscape Convention, landscape conservation policies in European countries are increasingly becoming connected to cultural heritage policies. In some European countries such as Spain, the vision of the ELC has been enriched with that of the guidelines on the inclusion of Cultural Landscapes on the World Heritage List. The Spanish National Cultural Landscape Plan, an instrument for the implementation of the ELC promoted by the Spanish Institute of Cultural Heritage, expressly states that its definition of cultural landscape should be based on the definition of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, but incorporating the ELC. However, this confluence is ultimately reflected in confronting guidelines. This study deepens this duality of the concept of cultural landscape, explores its conflicting spatial implications, and discusses its use in Spanish regional instruments. Through the statistical study of a sample of Spanish cultural landscapes, our study recognizes the need for guidelines for the identification of landscapes of special interest, especially if they are to be converted into cultural properties afterwards. Although the study cannot provide a method that solves the problem of the spatial dimensions of the landscape without major concessions, it has provided a classification of the dominant typology.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural landscape
• protected landscapes
• spatial representation
• European Landscape Convention
• Spanish National Cultural Landscape Plan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The website (www.100paisajes.es) works as an online exhibit of the work carried on by the Spanish Institute of Cultural Heritage and it was done by the research group that authors this article.

2 Taking advantage of the fact that all landscapes are acknowledged by local communities and, therefore, have been studied both by scholars and administrations.

3 Nonetheless, the PNPC aims to “driving forward cooperation with cultural landscape policies and networks on a European scale, specifically in matters to do with the study and safeguarding of cross-border landscapes, in compliance with the provisions of the European Landscape Convention” (PNPC 2011, 23).

4 Another noticeable trend refers to spatial structure. The shapes of the surface footprints can be classified in basic geometric terms as follows: dots, for activities focused on one concrete element; lines, for activities carried out along a river, valley or linear infrastructure; and planes, for extensive activities. Although interesting, this information departs from the main objective of this paper and we may consider it as a follow up.

5 At a global scale, we find that landscapes on the WHL have an approximate range of 35–1.000.000 ha, and, in Europe, of 90–150.000 ha. At a national scale, Spain has a range of 100–17.000 ha, while at a more local scale, in Andalucía, there is a range of 3.000–17.000 ha.

6 Without counting the landscape of Kujataa, in Greenland, the smallest cultural landscapes on the list are the Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK, at 132 ha; the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, at 125 ha and the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, at 91 ha.

Additional information

Funding

This article is a published result of the research project CULTURESCAPES (H2015/HUH-3383), funded by the European Social Fund and the Madrid regional government.