The paper focuses on Giuseppe Samonà’s two early writings, the article "Tradizionalismo e internazionalismo architettonico" (1929) and the book "La casa popolare" (1935) where he embedded some Nordic examples among the first ever presented to the Italian audience. In the 1930s, Samonà’s «misaligned» investigation was seeking a «strange conciliation» between the two sides of modern architecture – between Classicism and Functionalism – following a path similar to that one taken by some Swedish architects. Starting from the in-depth analysis of the examples selected by Samonà, the paper aims also to stress the importance of the foreign publications in the education of the Italian generation of young architects since the 1930s. >> The book is the final output of the namesake Call for Paper organised by the Università degli Studi Roma Tre and Università Iuav di Venezia (see attached Poster)