Modulor latino. La ricerca della misura nelle traiettorie transatlantiche di Germán Samper

Le Corbusier's research about the Modulor - a metric-proportional system to be used by the designer, capable for assuring beauty and harmony to the design outcomes - also involved the young collaborators who passed through rue de Sèvres. Among them, the Colombian Germán Samper Gnecco, with over 5000 drawings from his personal archive, document the development of his research, even after his return to Bogotà. Among these, a numerous Croquis de viaje shown the ability of perspective representation to capture the rules underlying beauty granted by the Modulor by the principle of commensuration and reference to the human scale. The series dedicated to Venice are of particular interest, where Samper reveals the secret urban plot that links the canals, bridges, courtyards and private gardens, capturing the proportional relationships between the architectural volumes, the bright opening of the campielli and the shady shelters of the porticoes. Instead, the drawings dedicated to the colonial nucleus of Cartagena de Las Indias show a clear tension towards overcoming the static nature of perspective projection. By progressively shifting the point of view, Samper obtained a sequence of perspective projections that compose, without interruption, a long panel where, against the background of the colonial buildings, groups of Modulor shapes appeared, bringing the visual effect of the work to a profoundly and intimately anthropocentric dimension.