The motorway is one of the privileged viewpoints of the contemporary landscape. Is it possible, however, to also conceive it as a creator of new landscapes? A landscape not only understood as a geographical space but also as a particular way of viewing. In the first sense of the term, it is obvious that motorways create landscape, since they have a direct impact on the immediate environment. The present work focuses on the second definition, on the particularities that the roadway offers in order to experience the landscape. Intending to influence, in this manner, on the design of the XXI century motorway and thus, overcoming the shameful or autonomous vision of infrastructure.
The outlook that the road provides is a specific vision, its own landscape. This particular point of view is the result of the perceptive conditions that driving on the motorway imposes on the observer and, in second place, the design of spaces associated to infrastructure. Landscape is experienced through a succession of visual sequences given the confinement, movement, visual pre-eminence and linearity that characterizes the motorway.
The term sequence refers directly to the cinematographic world. Its use in the context of the motorway is explained by the similarities between watching a film and the perception of the environment that this infrastructure offers. On the one hand, the immobility of the observer, together with the acceleration and the visual pre-eminence, alter the perception of movement. On the other hand, the continuity and linearity of the road entail an experience that has a specific duration. The resulting image has a beginning and an end; it is an animated image.
The thesis is based on the writings of the 60s and 70s that address the topic of the view from the motorway in a specific manner, the current publications that address the subject in a partial manner and the existence of a large group of constructed projects that respond to the particularities of the road experience. The correlation between texts and projects provides soundness, facilitates the study of a key aspect of the work as is the particular vision of the environment that high speed roads offer and allows surpassing certain bibliographic deficiencies.
The study is based on five basic sequences: open, closed, linear, landmark and static. These belong to two different groups: the sequences of the visual field and those based on experiencing motion.
A compilation of 66 projects, which comprise delimited sequences, illustrates the five basic sequences and the impact of these on the three phases or the interpretation of the perceptive process (spatial sense, movement perception, apparent meaning). The selection of projects that comprise sequences is based on the recognition of the aesthetic and cultural dimension of the motorway.
This research shows that the five basic sequences are not homogeneous, but present significant differences in relation to the three phases of the perceptual process. Since the sequences are not experienced individually but simultaneously and successively along the route, the vision that the road gives is characterized by a superposition of scales and perceptions.
On one hand, the sequences based on the experience of movement (linear, landmark and static) coincide simultaneously with the sequences of the visual field (open and closed). Even in certain road sections, a combination of sequences of the same group takes place. On the other hand, along the route, sequences of a different nature occur consecutively. The motorway defines a cumulative experience where the preceding sections affect the perception of the subsequent sequences. The resulting rhythm combines the continuous perception of the linear sequences, the syncopated one of the milestones and the static one of the stops in an alternating succession of open and closed sections. In no other environment does such a broad combination of readings take place.