Exploring Landscapes through Modern Roads: Historic Transport Corridors in Spain

Abstract

Roads are an essential element in the formation and shaping of cultural landscapes. This paper, by establishing some of the key aspects of the development of Spain's road infrastructures, and through mapping and fieldwork, aims to guide the reading of landscapes shaped by roads since the mid-eighteenth century. The deconstruction of landscapes formed by these roads reveals the evolution of the design and construction of transport infrastructure, of the uses and activities they supported, and of changes through time in the conditions and forms of mobility. The paper also locates and classifies sections of historic transport corridors where road routes from different periods still co-exist, reconstructing diachronic and synchronic relationships between the varying routes in an attempt to interpret the arrangement, structure and form of these landscapes of movement.