The adaptive reuse and the circular economy, combined together, promise to achieve both Baukultur and an improvement of the quality of life in urban areas thanks to the sustainable management of the built environment, triggering virtuous processes of economic and cultural growth for the context of intervention. The aim of this research is to understand how the scientific community defines and applied the adaptive reuse to the modern and contemporary Built Heritage, in order to identify qualitatively and quantitatively the application of the principles set out in the Davos Declaration. A systematic review method (PRISMA method) was used. The analysis of the geographical location of the papers shows that all continents, with the exception of Africa, are interested in this debate and the temporal location of the papers shows that interest in the adaptive reuse of modern and contemporary goods has grown from 2014 onwards, with an exponential increase from 2021 to the present. The number of studies aimed at analyzing reuse projects already carried out are prevalent: it is the operational practice that influences research, through a bottom-up mechanism, often determining a purely functional reuse of buildings, not allowing the community to regain possession of the space and to “adapt” it to their social and psychological needs, changing over time.