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A historical review that reaches the present day of the legacy of architect Leon Battista Alberti

The contemporary architect faces particularly critical threats that directly transform the modes of his action: the digital dematerialization of entire sectors of human activities, the explosion of urbanization and global megacities, and the global environmental crisis. Combined, they create a situation where architecture seems to no longer find its place. Faced with this discouraging scenario, Arnoldo Rivkin is convinced that the best architectural response to these issues lies in the wise rereading of certain ancient texts that founded the discipline.

Here we rediscover *De re ædificatoria*, by Leon Battista Alberti, one of the canonical texts and the first attempt at a general and rational theory of architectural design. Among Alberti’s concepts, the “medium,” the “zone,” and the “distribution” allow us to think together about the often disconnected scales of our built environments: the large territory, the site of implantation, and the interior layout of the building. By examining the evolution of these notions over time, from the grand siècle of Louis XIV to modern architecture, the historian identifies contemporary manifestations in certain projects by Lacaton & Vassal, Toyo Ito, or Rem Koolhaas.