The modern concept of monument and the value of the ancient.

The concept of "monument" - a work which is recognized over the course of history, according to various terms and conditions, as having a monumental quality - is unthinkable outside of the context of the location of the work, which is the source of its recognition. The bond of this notion with place and with its historical and social formation results in the stratification of significances which have little by little enhanced it, constituting a totally unique seismograph of the strategies put into effect by the different cultures in order to represent, directly of indirectly, with various levels of consciousness, their own environment, their own time, and their own concept of time. The evolution of the concept of monument is inseparable from the progressive definition of (scientific and legislative) measures of protection. The exponential expansion of the domain of property necessitates that it be given the value of monument, enlarges and transforms the concept to the point of menacing the very sense of things and values. In this attempt at an historical and critical reconstruction, the author has privileged the beginnings of the modern concept of monument: its redefinition resulting from the theory of conservation (Riegl-Dvorak); the problems of the survival of the monument and the temporary horizon defined by the strategies of protection of the patrimony of humanity beginning in the 1970s - and in conclusion, the complexity and the admissibility of the value of what is old today.