Juan Bautista Medici
The engineer Juan Bautista Medici, born in Piedmont Italy in 1843 and died in Buenos Aires in 1903. Three years before his death he was awarded a US patent for construction of navigable channels at the mouth of the mississippi. Although the patent was never realized, it would have radically reconfigured the delta. Juan Bautista Medici arrived in Argentina around 1870, after working on the railways Italian and works for the provision of potable water to the city Montevideo, together with the English engineer & Newman. In Buenos Aires, MEDICI conducted the detailed survey of part of the  city, commissioned by the national government and took other jobs, including which the construction of a plant for manufacturing gas. Then, together with Newman, he assumed leadership of the works hydraulic sanitation of the city and built the seawall and Catalinas dam. Some time later, together with the Argentine engineer Lavalle, made the surveying and leveling 175.000 square kilometers of the province of Buenos Aires, accompanying the project work with an extensive network of channels designed to give exit to the waters of that area; two of those channels should be navigable. This project was awarded gold medal at the  . Once founded the city of La Plata in 1882, together with Lavalle projected leveling and layout of the new capital as well as the provision of water and sanitation of it. Also, with Lavalle, he initiated the construction of the port of La Plata, and Lavalle retired from society, just finished the work. It also concluded only sanitation works of the Federal Capital, which had begun with Newman and had stopped for financial reasons 1878 and performed numerous other important works, including the water purification installations and outbuildings, and the running water palace, located in Cordoba and Riobamba. In 1900  he patented a system for construction of navigable channels at the Mouth Of the Mississippi River. Medici also fostered the cultivation of the vine in la provincia San Juan using the experience they had done. their own Piedmontese establishment of Castiglione d'Asti. Died in Buenos Aires, in 1903. References. Hindle, Richard. Patent and Place: Intellectual Property and Site Specificity. Forty Five Journal http://forty-five.com/papers/139 Estadística, Buenos Aires (Argentina : Province). Dirección General de. Anuario Estadístico de La Provincia de Buenos Aires. La Dirección, 1883. Petriella, Dionisio. Los italianos en la historia del progreso argentino. Buenos Aires: Asociaci�n Dante Alighieri, 1985 . Hindle, Richard L. "Prototyping the Mississippi Delta: Patents, alternative futures, and the design of complex environmental systems." Journal of Landscape Architecture 12.2 (2017): 32-47. Hindle, Richard L. “Patent Scenarios for the Mississippi River.” Journal of Architectural Education 71:2 (2017): 278-284