COL·LABORAxPAISATGE: Rural Development Through the Landscape and Public Collaboration

Maite Oliva Alsina

Coordinator of COL·LABORAxPAISATGE, Catalonia

Abstract: Our dry-stone heritage, trade and building technique are handicapped by a systemic problem that is causing this knowledge and practice to practically disappear. Paradoxically, dry-stone structures are numerous in Catalonia, especially in the countryside, while also forming part of road infrastructures, some of them built on dry-stone banks and bridges. The loss of the technique, along with the abandonment of these structures, has led to an inability to maintain and restore them. At the same time, it’s also a technique that has proven to be useful in overcoming the challenges facing contemporary architecture, in keeping with the SDGs defined by the United Nations and contained in the 2030 Agenda, and it was included on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2018. Through multiple lines of work, the COL·LABORAxPAISATGE project contributes to the enhancement of this heritage, trade and technique as a means for the development of rural areas.