Travel in time : is the informal a heritage to be preserved?

The prolonged economic downturn that hit the Western world profiles a crisis of civilization. We start re-considering the fundamentals of scientific knowledges; the same disciplinary paradigms are under discussion and redefinition. With this paper we will introduce an alternative built heritage: the informal, the ordinary. These notes will also consider possible economical benefits driven by a policy that includes framing portions of informal urban scenes (in terms of builtscape) in its actions of preserving. The introduction will outline the difference between Monument and Document. The aim of this paper, according to the above distinction, is to focus on the documental value of the built heritage preservation, overcoming the traditional frame of environmental preservation in order to repositioning the ordinariness as baton in the relay that we are all running for the next generations. Some examples will support what is not yet a full theory, rather a set of questions that should carefully be considered by those who are in charge of our heritage, of the Common Good. In our opinion it is important to transmit a wider documentation of our time to future generations: urban scenes and atmospheres, usage modality and material cultures, which are straying.