Stefania Filo Speziale (1905–1988) was an Italian architect, the first woman to graduate from an

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

program in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. She was born in Naples and graduated from the Regio istituto superiore di architettura in Naples in 1932. Filo Speziale worked as an assistant to professor Marcello Canino in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Naples. She became a full professor in 1970. During the 1930s, she was an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

at the Mostra d'Oltremare, designing several pavilions. Next, she worked on private residences and

public housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

in Naples. She was a member of the National Institute of

Urban Design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes based on geographical location. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, city, ...

in 1945. She designed the Metropolitan Cinema in Naples in 1948. She worked with two young architects Carlo Chiurazzi and Giorgio di Simone starting in 1954; they began as assistants but later shared an office with her. Their best work includes the Palazzo Della Morte and the Cattolica Assicurazioni skyscraper. She died in Naples in 1988; Filo Speziale destroyed her entire

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

before her death.

References

1905 births 1988 deaths Italian women architects {{Italy-architect-stub