Cultural landscape and infrastructure development: ways of coexistence.

Abstract

The complex nature of the cultural landscape has been discovered as its most valuable source. It generates large synergistic forces around, giving rise to new forms of landscape with many added values. The social reluctance to incorporate new transport systems into cultural landscapes has led to the acceptance of those projects that are sensitive to the environment. In addition to giving a service, these examples enable an educational and an aesthetic approach of man to landscape. There are coexisting landscapes, which have managed to evolve admitting the incorporation of new elements without suffering any damage, retaining each one their own identity. It can be summarized into three different ways to carry out this situation from the most controlled aptitudes with landscape, to more interventionists ones. The first one can be illustrated with the subtle introduction of Millau viaduct over the Tarn River, where infrastructure is integrated seamlessly into a landscape of established values. Sometimes, infrastructure can be at the service of the cultural landscape on a clearly way, as we can see in the design for the access to Mont Saint Michel in France by Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes. It is established an active dialogue between the bridge and the cultural landscape, leading visitors across an almost initiatory path. Other times, the landscape has to evolve to adapt to a new situation developing new ways of understanding their own existence. A representative sample is Bernard Lassus project for Autoroute-837 as it passes through Crazannes, in the south of France. At the end, it could be confirmed the possibility to adapt these models of intervention to nearest cases. LABPAP footbridge for Camino de Santiago in Puente Villarente, Spain, is a good example in which the pedestrian is offered to have a ride with a high cultural landscape content.