Spatial Data Infrastructures and Spanish Cultural Heritage: The INSPIRE Framework Applied to the Monastery of El Escorial

The INSPIRE Directive established an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE), aiming to enable the interoperability and harmonization of spatial data sets and services across Europe. There are two main data specifications inside INSPIRE that might concern cultural heritage data: the Data Specification on Protected Sites, and the Data Specification on Area Management/Restriction/Regulation Zones and Reporting Units. These data specifications include the technical documentation of the application schema that defines the content and structure of the data required by one or more applications. Cultural heritage also overlaps the Data Specification on Buildings, for architectural heritage is to be taken as constructed buildings under that data specification. Nonetheless, many heritage features do not fit within the definition of a building. The Cultural Heritage Application Schema developed by IDEE (Infraestructuras de Datos Espaciales) [Spatial Data Infrastructures] Working Group suggests the inclusion of cultural heritage protected areas as a special kind of protected site, and develops a minimal schema to include information about the real world protected entity. This approach involves some difficulties. As a case study we propose the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the surrounding Royal Estates.