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THE MASIA AS A LIEU DE MÉMOIRE: FROM THE TRADITIONAL HOUSE TO RURAL TOURISM


According to the French historian Pierre Nora, the “collapse of memory” in contemporary society has caused the dissappearance of “milieux de mémorie, authentic surroundings of memory.” Given that we no longer live in a society in which “memory is experienced collectively,” it is necessary for us to create lieux de mémorie, artificial places that act as a Space to remember. This article takes Can Traver (a country house situated in La Garrotxa) as an example and provides an interpretation of the country home as a lieu de mémoire, as a place that reflects the social, economic and legal structures of the rural Catalan territories. The arquitectural typology of the house symbolizes the rebirth of determining values of the history of Catalonia, or, to put it another way, it permits the attribution of a series of meanings related to the Catalan national identity, such as the rural origins of Catalonia or the importance of the family and the insitution of the hereu (first born). These traditional values and country way of life find their architectural translation in the country home. For this reason it is possible to explain the expansion of rural tourism, agrotourism and ecotourism throughout the Catalan territory. This new type of tourism is not simply a way of profiting from rural properties that have lost their agricultural function but rather it is a promesse de bonheur, the potential to experience something authentic, traditional and belonging to the past (even though this experience has nothing to do with the real life of the country or the people who live and work there).