Abstract
VVladimiro Acosta (WA) was a Russian architect with centro-european modem studies. His moving to Latin America in 1928 he meant one of the most significant contributions to Argentinian architecture. Since his arrival until 1935 he would develop ten social housing prototypes, which although they were never built they still represent one of the main and most complete studies on housing unit. The hypothesis which leads this thesis shows these prototypes as one of the most significant contributions in typological and technological innovation on social housing in Argentina and Latin America. We consider social housing as one of the most relevant contributions of the modern period. lts research places us before a central topic in modern discipline, where it is possible to dig the main lines of an architectonic thought born in Europe during the first half of XX Century. Nevertheless, it is the move to a specific place where we want to place our study field. This material shows the works of an architect with modern studies whose professional development is proposed in and for a different hemisphere. The hypothesis that this work presents, describes the particular evolution as the outcome of the confrontation of a theory acquired following the European avant-garde of the 20s with a different economic and territorial reality. This confrontation between the concept of the european urban and architectonic modernity with the socio-cultural reality in Latin America would allow WA to produce highly innovative proposals. When we focus in the typological and technological innovations WA developed on social housing over this short but fruitful period, leads us to endose accurate enough material so as to visualize one of the most valuable contributions in Argentinian Architecture. The prototypes which are studied were never built. Digital technology was used to the graphic construction of these projects, placing drawing as builders. Thus, drawing becomes a complement which adds up to the final outcome. This tool reveals new aspects of the unit and the whole, going through the exactitude of the three dimension construction. In this investigation the graphic construction adds information which creates an investigation tool to give different shades to the original object of study and states an inquiry position in the historic and productive aspects through the observation of architecture as formal material. In this way, the graphic construction is the protagonist since it adds original information, a new aspect of WA work and its potential. This work is intended to identify the design instruments, the logic train of thought where WA based his prototypes so as to find a kind of genealogy of the projects signed by WA. The peculiar evolution in his proposals guides us to the hypothesis which favors the universality of the modern theory by showing the ability of adaptation to any site. This work does not try to define WA’s proposals as modern or local, instead it tries to go beyond a mere labeling, investigating the instruments that the author values in his projects . At the same time, it is of interest to check its validity, probably not directly its use nowadays, but in its recognition as contribution in a field that it is still developing.
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