The ESPACIOS Chair publishes its first international scientific article on cultural infrastructure and territory

The ESPACIOS Chair for Culture, Creativity and Innovation takes a decisive step in its research trajectory with the publication of its first scientific article in the Journal of Cultural Economics, a leading international academic journal. The article, titled Development of the Spanish Theatre Geo-Database: a comprehensive tool for cultural infrastructure analysis, is authored by Virgilio Pérez, Vicente Coll and Pau Rausell-Köster.

In line with ESPACIOS’ founding objectives, the article contributes to generating specialised knowledge, developing classification and analytical methodologies, and providing useful tools for evidence-based public policy on cultural infrastructure.

The study addresses a major gap in research on cultural infrastructures: the lack of integrated databases linking the location of facilities with their physical and urban characteristics. To overcome this limitation, the team has developed the Spanish Theatre Geo-Database, an original dataset combining geospatial and cadastral information on public theatres in Spain, based on sources such as the Cadastre and Redescena. According to the article, this tool enables the analysis of the spatial provision of cultural infrastructures with an unprecedented level of detail and with a methodology that can be replicated in other contexts.

One of the study’s main contributions is the proposal of four innovative indicators to measure the territorial provision of cultural infrastructures: Theatre Density Rate (TDR), Theatre Area Rate (TAR), Public Building Density Rate (PBDR) and Public Building Area Rate (PBAR). These indicators distinguish between different logics of cultural public policy: on the one hand, the territorial spread of supply, and on the other, the physical scale and intensity of capital invested in infrastructure. The article highlights that this distinction helps to better understand how territorial access, historical accumulation and the weight of large cultural infrastructures interact in shaping Spain’s cultural map.

The results reveal strong territorial heterogeneity and statistically significant patterns of spatial concentration, particularly in theatre density. Provincial analysis shows notable differences across territories in the proposed indicators, while at the municipal level it is observed that the 1,427 theatres analysed are distributed across 972 municipalities, that is, 11.85% of all Spanish municipalities. These findings confirm that theatre infrastructure is not evenly distributed but instead reflects dynamics of agglomeration, institutional legacies and territorial inequalities.

The relevance of this contribution also lies in its systematisation and further development of a line of work already initiated within the Chair’s project, whose conceptual and methodological advances can be consulted through the cultural infrastructure mapping project and related PITEC materials. Indeed, the article notes that the methodology and indicators developed are particularly well suited to support the mapping and territorial diagnosis phase of cultural infrastructure planning, in line with the objectives of the Territorial Plan for Cultural Infrastructure Development.

With this publication, the ESPACIOS Chair consolidates one of its main missions: to establish the analysis of cultural infrastructures as a robust field of research, useful for decision-making and connected to contemporary debates on territorial cohesion, cultural rights and creative ecosystems. This first article also opens a line of work that will allow for the expansion of databases, refinement of indicators and a more precise understanding of the role of cultural infrastructures in territorial structuring.