Strategies to value the dispersed heritage of rural Andalusia. Lagares, paseros and vineyards: the architecture of the raisin

Abstract

[EN] The United Nations Food and Agroindustry Organization (FAO) declared in 2018 the Malaga raisin pro-duction system as an Important World Agricultural Heritage System (SIPAM). There are 62 SIPAM world-wide, five of them in Spain and Malaga is the only one in the entire Andalusian autonomous community. The value of this declaration resides in the recognition of a cultural heritage capable of combining agri-cultural biodiversity with resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural landscape where its architecture remains linked to artisan production. The SIPAM of Malaga has an area of 280 km², it ranges from the cultivation of the Moscatel grape to its transformation into raisins through drying in the sun, favoring the conservation of the landscape, avoiding erosion or desertification processes and constituting an element of linkage of the population with its territory.Since the 18th century, the production coexisted with other forms of elaboration that complemented it. Said structures associated with this industry were located on agricultural properties following various construc-tion models, ranging from rudimentary forms of sunlight such as the almijares in the paved ring of the press, to buildings of higher production. After the phylloxera crisis and the process of constant production decline, we would end up with the destruction of a large part of Malaga's payments. The wineries, paseros and warehouses were transformed into ruins or were reconverted to other lower-yield agricultural activi-ties.Of that material wealth we recognize scattered examples in the current rural landscape of the mountains of Malaga, whose architectural qualities deserve to be rescued and valued as an example of the unique and representative traditional architecture of a declared cultural landscape. These results are directly linked to the work strategies and objectives that we follow in the Transnational research project SIN-PAR (Inno-vation System for the Heritage of Rural Andalusia).