Trazas de Pontevedra

The First Stage of Trazas de Pontevedra concerns landscape interventions carried out in 3 of the 18 Galician-Roman settlements in the province of Pontevedra which are part of the musealisation and enhancement project by AGi architects. These interventions will lay the basis for the entire project in order to create a unique network for the reinterpretation of Galicia’s archaeological landscape.

 The interventions in the castros—or Celtic forts—of Alobre, Toiriz, and A Subidá have been sensitive and respectful towards each site’s surrounding environment, as will happen with the other sites in subsequent stages. The aim was to provide them with a distinct, simple, and sustainable identity, while offering a singular experience for visitors and becoming a driver for local tourism.

AGi architects have approached the project as a natural museum where the memory of the landscape is recreated by means of native vegetation, different layering patterns—sound, lighting, ground, and routes—, and a “information pikes” system used as generative and museum-building elements. This creates a cohesive overall experience that brings both the natural and that abstract, imagined, and designed world closer to the observer.

 Each of the three forts in this first stage has been provided with access points and routes, with signage to designate the intervention areas and the preventative protection of the sites, as well as singular elements for its musealisation, with the aim of providing the public with a historical narrative around these prehistoric settlements of great scientific, historical, heritage, and socioeconomic interest.

 These first three interventions develop transferrable strategies to be implemented in the rest of the sites included in Trazas de Pontevedra, with landscape and material approaches that adapt to each local environment in order to preserve their own distinct essence and personality.