Intangible values of cultural routes

The ICOMOS Charter on Cultural Routes (2008) underscores the importance of intangible values when identifying and working with cultural routes. Progress has been made in identifying, documenting, and protecting a cultural route’s tangible properties such as buildings (e.g., churches, residences, public buildings) and structures (e.g., bridges, canals, and the actual roadbed itself). Equally important are the intangibles, and how tangible and intangible values are intertwined. Buildings and landscapes, after all, are containers of experiences, and routes are avenues along which these experiences that define the route are developed and expressed. Intangible values that inform a cultural route are infinite, and can comprise such reciprocal influences as “religion, ritual, language, festival, gastronomy, music, literature, architecture, dance, fine arts, handicrafts, scientific advances, technical and technological skills” (ICOMOS Cultural Routes Charter).