The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO's General Conference, in October 2003, has an intention of cultural awareness-raising and protection that can only be rewarding for those who care about the integrated sustainability of communities by virtue of its implicit extensive and vigorous notion of culture. However, the conceptualization of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) especially through a paradigm of safeguarding and archive, that embodies a preservationist ethos, has in itself potential limitations that urge us to challenge. In this paper, I defend a re-conceptualization of the ICH that reformulates the interaction between the traditional and the contemporary. Then, the implications of that are analysed in terms of Museum activities, offering some strategies so that the museum institution is no longer the Mausoleum referred by Theodor Adorn [1967], celebrating only the survival of the past. On the contrary, the Museum must also be able to contribute towards the flourishing and renovation of contemporary cultural contexts, thus becoming an effective local development agent.