Giuseppe Samonà

Giuseppe Samonà (Palermo, 8 April 1898 – Rome, 31 October 1983) was an Italian architect, urban planner and politician.
Considered one of the greatest Italian architects of his time[1], he was equally celebrated as an urban planner.
Giuseppe Samonà is one of the most complex figures of twentieth-century Italian architecture. His importance can be traced back to the Royal Institute of Architecture of Venice (later IUAV) which he was called to direct in 1943[2].

He came from two historic families of the Sicilian aristocracy, having been fathered by Don Carmelo Samonà and Princess Adele Monroy of Pandolfina. Having graduated from the University of Palermo in 1922, in 1927 he began his teaching career, first teaching at the University of Messina and then, from 1931 to 1936, at the Federico II University of Naples.
Rome Post Office in via Taranto side facade
Among his most important projects, the one from 1929, which involved the reconstruction of the port scenario of the city of Messina with the so-called "Palazzata" or "Maritime Theatre", consisting of a curtain of thirteen buildings, stylistically homogeneous, connected by monumental gates. The reconstruction of the Palazzata was never completed, and only the first two buildings (those of the INA) with the relative intermediate gate were built according to the reconstruction project. In 1936 he was called by the University Institute of Architecture in Venice, where he continued his academic activity until 1971 and where he founded, among other things, the so-called "School of Venice".

Samonà's other projects include the Bari Hospital Trauma Center (1948), Villa Scimemi in Palermo (1950), the current Enel building in Palermo, once the "Sges Building" (1961), the headquarters of the Bank of Italy in Padua, the Gibellina Town Hall (1971) and the Teatro Popolare in Sciacca (1974), partially completed in 2015 (hall "A") and opened to the public in May 2015.

From 25 May 1972 to 4 July 1976 he was a Senator of the Republic. Elected on the lists of the Italian Communist Party in Veneto, he joined the Independent Left Group since his debut in politics[3].

He is also remembered for being one of the "four wise men", together with Giancarlo De Carlo, Umberto Di Cristina and Anna Maria Sciarra Borzì, charged with drafting the "Programme Plan" for the historic centre of Palermo (1979 – 1981).
Source: Wikipedia (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Samon%C3%A0)