In one of his classes, Alexandre Alves Costa said the destruction of Cluny Abbey during the French Revolution – the paradigm of all the excesses and luxuries that characterised the Ancien Régime – represented an irreparable loss for architecture, but it was also the sign and affirmation of an irreproachable historical conquest. In fact, the history of architecture is nothing but the history of its permanent destruction, i.e. a long and endless list of burnt, plundered and imploded buildings.