Matrix and Fractal: On the Structure of Heritage Constructions in Catalonia

Abstract Heritage is more than isolated and commodified places and events. It is, at least in part, an assemblage of interconnected stories. Changing social, cultural, and political circumstances may strengthen or weaken the ways these stories connect one to another. An examination of heritage exemplars in Barcelona and Catalonia offers a way to better understand what gives the narrative connections between heritage, culture, and identity their tenacity. In Catalonia, heritage often points back to a medieval pre-Spanish past. How any particular example refers back suggests structural linkages that connect it—in history, myth, and collective imagination—to other heritage exemplars. Drawing on El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria and other exemplars, this article uses the terms inventory, ecology, matrix, and fractal to consider the value of the structural connections.