The Shearing Building, an Industrial Typology Developed During the XVII Century. Features and Details

Abstract

During the XVII and XVIII centuries, the owners of the most important transhumant livestock of merino sheep in Spain developed a new typological pattern of industrial architecture. Large complexes whose purpose was to house all the operations involved in the extraction of wool and its subsequent distribution, as well as giving shelter to every attendee according to their social position and role. Most of these buildings, nowadays shut down or disappeared, were built in the vicinity of Segovia, connected to the Cañada Real Soriana Occidental. This particular group of similar complexes in a limited site was an unprecedented phenomenon, an in-depth study of which has, to date, been lacking. This research, that forms part of a doctoral thesis, tries to fill the said gap through the analysis and deduction of the typology and in order to do that it was necessary to contrast the original documents found in the historical files with the surveys made by exhaustive field work. All of that allowed us to reveal the configuration, characteristics and variables of the type of shearing, whose implementation was the key to the development of transhumance and the Segovian territory itself.