This paper is born from the intimate belief that solutions for the future are to be found in the past. No transformation is irreversible enough to destroy the experiences of the past, unified as a ...core in tradition. Those come into light whenever the proper conditions are created. From the point of view of architecture, representation is the basis for the transmission of knowledge, ideas, feelings, etc. The method of the paper is to put in antithesis two concepts which define the present world of representation： real （associated to transcendent revelation） and virtual （understood as result of human imagination）. An itinerary through the philosophy of Plato and Plotin, ancient Greek, Byzantine, Gothic architecture, etc., is proposed, until encountering the moment of the death of revelation and the birth of the arbitrary, which is connected to the supremacy of the image. This journey through aesthetic conceptions brought major changes in art and society during the centuries. Recuperation of the involvement of all human senses into perception of space and understanding of the built environment of life as revelation, and not as a simple interface of images, may lead now to a revolution of urban spirit, based on a relationship with the city inspired from the values promoted by Socrates and later developed into Christianity, that proved their permanence across the millenniums.
A superficial perspective on architecture may induce the impression that it consists in the analysis of a long series of “containers”, conceived to shelter activities, technically named “programmes”. ...This inaccurate interpretation is distanced from the inner sense of “frozen music”, as defined by Goethe. Seen as an engine of civilizations across history, architecture acts as a phenomenon, answering to a dynamics defined both on a social scale and on a family or individual scale. We use today pedantic terms, such as “conversion”, “resilience” or the English term “adaptive re-use”, with the impression that these are conquests of our present thinking. But this process was followed as well when Roman amphitheaters were transformed into living areas or when Greek and Roman temples sheltered Christian basilicas since every epoch had its own conception on the pragmatism of reusing a pre-existing built fund.
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