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Desde la antigüedad hasta hoy, la tradición vitruviana ha dominado los modos en que se ha entendido el oficio de la arquitectura y la figura del arquitecto en Occidente. Esta tradición hace de la arquitectura una práctica necesariamente relacionada con la edificación. Sin embargo, en los tiempos en que Vitruvio escribía su De Architectura, diferentes nociones sobre el oficio permeaban tanto en escritos dramáticos y filosóficos como en el sentido común de la época. En Cicerón y Eurípides, pero sobre todo en Plauto, encontramos arquitecturas cuyos objetivos se alejaban del arte y se acercaban a la política, y arquitectos con habilidades que tenían menos que ver con la técnica, y más con la prudencia. Con ayuda del pensamiento aristotélico, veremos que estas figuras no eran meros caprichos dramatúrgicos ni moralistas, sino que poseían un fundamento epistemológico y práctico, que encontraba en la arquitectura un modo de pen- sar y de actuar más allá de la proyección y construcción de edificios.

En el ámbito de la arquitectura y el urbanismo, ¿qué significa proyectar algo nuevo? Este artículo problematiza el concepto de lo “nuevo” con base en la manera en que fue desplegado en las vanguardias artísticas europeas del siglo XX. Lo anterior, con el fin de analizar uno de los movimientos arquitectónicos más radicales de la historia occidental: el constructivismo ruso. La propuesta del artículo es que el ámbito de la arquitectura en especial resalta un problema “temporal” inherente al concepto de lo “nuevo” que no aparece en otros medios artísticos. La intención es que mediante el estudio del concepto de lo “nuevo” en el contexto del constructivismo, el lector pueda a su vez utilizar el marco histórico-conceptual presentado para asumir una postura crítica ante el ejercicio arquitectónico y urbanístico actual.

An album of photographs in the Kansas University Natural History Museum found together with the Patagonian fossils collected by Handel T. Martin in 1904 was assumed in a recent publication to have been assembled by Martin. It comprises 193 numbered pages and 580 photographs of prepared fossil vertebrate specimens, some labeled as from the Museo de La Plata and others, without labels, which were assumed as having been in F. Ameghino’s private fossil collection. However, archival evidence in the Yale Peabody Museum indicates that the album is most likely the original copy of the photographic album assembled by William B. Scott during his visit to Argentina in 1901 to examine fossil specimens from Patagonia in the museums of La Plata and Buenos Aires, and in Ameghino’s collection. It represents an important record of the specimens present at these institutions and in possession of Ameghino near the turn of the last century, a period during which those fossils aroused considerable scientific interest and were in very high demand among researchers and academic institutions, but marked as well by severe conflicts between F. Ameghino and the Director of the Museo de La Plata, F.P. Moreno. As a consequence the collections were subjected to considerable turmoil and many important specimens can no longer be located. The album provides visual references for these specimens and facilitates systematic and taxonomic research by helping to evaluate which specimens were used to erect numerous taxa and which were analyzed by other researchers who published on such remains.

An album of photographs in the Kansas University Natural History Museum found together with the Patagonian fossils collected by Handel T. Martin in 1904 was assumed in a recent publication to have been assembled by Martin. It comprises 193 numbered pages and 580 photographs of prepared fossil vertebrate specimens, some labeled as from the Museo de La Plata and others, without labels, which were assumed as having been in F. Ameghino’s private fossil collection. However, archival evidence in the Yale Peabody Museum indicates that the album is most likely the original copy of the photographic album assembled by William B. Scott during his visit to Argentina in 1901 to examine fossil specimens from Patagonia in the museums of La Plata and Buenos Aires, and in Ameghino’s collection. It represents an important record of the specimens present at these institutions and in possession of Ameghino near the turn of the last century, a period during which those fossils aroused considerable scientific interest and were in very high demand among researchers and academic institutions, but marked as well by severe conflicts between F. Ameghino and the Director of the Museo de La Plata, F.P. Moreno. As a consequence the collections were subjected to considerable turmoil and many important specimens can no longer be located. The album provides visual references for these specimens and facilitates systematic and taxonomic research by helping to evaluate which specimens were used to erect numerous taxa and which were analyzed by other researchers who published on such remains.