Civil engineering heritage in Spain: public protection strategies

Abstract

The incorporation of Spanish public works as heritage assets has tended to be restricted to specific structures. In this respect, the majority of work protecting this heritage has focused on bridges, dams or railway stations. As opposed to the conventional view, there is another view that considers civil engineering heritage from a territorial focus. This approach regards landscape as a cultural artefact and the individual elements as points or intersections within the networks of roads, canals or railways that shape the landscape. The growing interest in the consideration of ever-larger heritage sites has recently led to the consideration of new types of assets by several Spanish organisations and to the search for methods to manage them. In this respect, the Ministry of Culture has launched the National Plan for Cultural Landscapes and the National Plan for Industrial Heritage. The heritage of these assets is particularly vulnerable as they remain in use in the vast majority of cases. This paper subsequently aims to evaluate the strength of both plans to preserve the territorial heritage of public works and offers some new insights that could be transferable to the international community.