The numerical matrix in Samonà’s architecture in Messina. From geometry to visual modeling

The drawings of Giuseppe Samonà’s residential architecture in Messina are situated in the historical context of the mid-20th century in which there has already been a transition from academic graphic virtuosity toward the exaltation of pure line as an expression of design invention. Graphic language becomes the medium of communication of the architecture in which pure geometric figures and the units of measurement of rational numbers represent the codified expression that visualize form, define functions and verify dimensions. The drawings of the facade is the main tool in the concept of the residential blocks of the Cortina del Porto of Messina that Samonà realized between 1952 and 1959, more than twenty years after the blocks for public use.