: « This is my/our heritage », this expresses an element of the nature of the links modern society maintains with the past. What is the true foundation of this statement and the overall notion of heritage today? This study stems from the concept of updating what defines heritage in the modern mindset. It could arise from a new sense of responsability within our society. There appears to be a common perception shared by ordinary people on which they base their uninitiated evaluation of elements in their environment. Each person creates their "own" heritage drawn from their daily surroundings. These makeshift assembly differ from the institutionalised practice of acrediting an element as "true" heritage. The outcome of this mechanism was observed amongst active local people in the Liberation District (Quartier de Liberation) in Nice during an important stage in a development project, which resulted in a clash of beliefs about heritage. It became necessary to go beyond the standard conception of heritage and start from other angles, to the transition between general expectations and daily life. Firstly taking into consideration the spatial and temporal representations of this district based on individual experience, then by demonstrating patrimonial nature of these elements throught authentification and plea. Finally the last factor being simply the patrimonial sentiments towards objects in our localized surroundings. Henceforth, each ordinary person’s heritage seems to be defined by the awareness we have acquired of it and the importance we have learnt to attribute to it.
