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Between auto-obliteration and damnatio memoriae.
The forgotten story of Stefania Filo Speziale. by Pietro Rosano
Course: Women, Gender and Modern Architecture Spring 2024
Instructor: Mary McLeod
    While walking southward along the stretch of via Monteoliveto between Palazzo Orisni di Gravina, home of the Faculty of Architecture of Naples Federico II, and the intersection with via Cardinale Guglielmo Sanfelice, one cannot fail but notice, towering above the old buildings of the of the historic district, and above the complex of the Fascist architecture of piazza Giacomo Matteotti, an "unusual"  building in shape and size that contrasts the context of the Rione Carità neighborhood section of the historic quarter of Naples. I used to go to Palazzo Gravina [usually] to attend lectures, and I would walk that stretch of road southward, to reach the subway stop in piazza Giovanni Bovio, to catch the train home. Although at the time I had already been an architecture student for a few years, I did not know who was the designer of that skyscraper that caught my attention every time. In fact, I knew nothing about that building, despite its obvious architectural and formal quality, and despite the fact that at that time it was still one of the tallest buildings in the city. This tower was the first skyscraper to be built in Naples and in Southern Italy, and it held the title of tallest building in the city until the completion in 1995 of the “Centro Direzionale” building complex designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. My unawareness of the history of that building was not a symptom of an architecture student’s lack of historical knowledge, but rather a symptom of something more serious. It was in fact, the symptom of a historical and critical amnesia (perhaps voluntary?) on behalf of the Italian and international historiographers and critics, which resulted in forgetting - or perhaps the intentional removal - not only of that project, but one of the most important figures in the architectural scenery of those years. The designer of that tower was Stefania Filo Speziale, a woman with a strong, determined character and a distinct personality - as described by her granddaughter Maria Pia Speziale in the preface of the book “Stefania Filo Speziale. Inhabiting the Mediterranean City”. In short, a true Neapolitan woman. Although she has fallen too long into oblivion, Stefania Filo Speziale was an undisputed protagonist of an entire cultural era of Modern Neapolitan and Italian architecture. She was important for two reasons, first as an architect, she contributed decisively in shaping post - World War II Naples, and, second, as a professor in training entire generations of young architects. Even though she was the author of more than one hundred and fifty completed works and an established academic figure, her vast architectural production is, however, to this day still unknown to many.


1. Stefania Filo Speziale
    Born in Naples on September 13 1905, Stefania, as a woman architect, has achieved important milestones and records in a difficult social and economic context, such as the Southern Italy case.

    She was the first woman to graduate in Architecture in the city of Naples in 1932, and among the first ever in Italy. After completing her study from the Accademia di Belle Arti Nella Nuova Regia Scuola Superiore di Architettura di Napoli, Marcello Canino, one of the most important figures of Italian Rationalism, hired as a Teaching Assistant at his course, allowing her to become the first woman in Italy to hold this academic position. In 1937, together with Marcello Canino she participated in the design of the master plan of the Mostra Triennale delle Terre Italiane d’Oltremare; thus, in her early thirties, she became the first woman architect to ever design a building in Naples. In fact, she personally designed several structures at the fair, including the North Gate and four pavilions. All these buildings were lost during the bombings of World War II, and never rebuilt when the exhibition complex was reopened in 1952, although Stefania participated in the reconstruction and restoration project of the Mostra Triennale delle Terre Italiane d’Oltremare itself. All the architects who participated in the design of the exhibition in 1937, participated then in the reconstruction of the exhibition after the war, and all the buildings that were destroyed or damaged, were respectively rebuilt and restored. Although her mentor, Marcello Canino, joined Marcello Piacentini in directing the reconstruction plan of the fair, for some reason the buildings designed by Stefania were the only ones to not be rebuilt. If, as a woman she had been "granted”, during the Fascist regime, the opportunity to design them, why was she later denied (if it was denied) the opportunity to redesign them? Was it possible that on the very first buildings she independently designed, there was already the omen of the damantio memoriae?
   
    Despite the ghost of this omen, Stefania had a brilliant career, during the post-World War II period, she was involved in the reconstruction of the city of Naples, severely damaged by the bombing. She was involved with the design of many  social housing projects, as well as numerous single-family and multi-family bourgeois dwellings. In 1954, she founded an associated studio with her two former students, Carlo Chiurazzi and Giorgio di Simone, the first ever in Naples to be directed by a woman. In the same year, together with her two collaborators, she participated in the competition announced by the Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni to design a skyscraper, which they won and subsequently led the construction of the building, the very first skyscraper built in Naples and in Southern Italy, and among the highest in the entire country. The tower, built in the second half of the 1950s, has since been the Neapolitan designer's most discussed and debated work. This building marked the darkest years of her career, followed by envy of all the architects in town and the criticism from her colleagues at the University and part of the critics, historians and restorers that  accused the project of not related to the city's historic district. 

2. Società Cattolica Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design competition proposal.


The skyscraper debate was opened by the critic and historian Cesare Brandi, who in the pages of "L'Architettura. Cronache e Storia'' wrote:

"a skyscraper first barely limited to 55 meters, then raised to 60, then to 70, and now hopefully, to the original 90 meters. After all, it was inevitable that in the Babel of the Carità district there would also be towers of Babel, blurring the language of architecture into that of building speculation."  

Bruno Zevi wrote that the skyscraper was "ugly”. Roberto Pane in the pages of "Napoli Nobilissima" stated: "it has even been attempted to defend it in the name of a new culture, while in truth, it is only the expression of passive obedience to building speculation".

The skyscraper of Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni rises at intersection between Via Medina and Via dei Fiorentini, in the Rione Carità neighborhood, a few hundred meters from Castel Nuovo, a part of the Historic Center of Naples (Centro Storico di Napoli) that began to develop around the second half of the 14th century, and went to further expansion under Aragonese rule at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries and under the Bourbon crown in the 18th century. It then underwent major urban “evisceration” throughout the Fascist period. Stefania Filo Speziale was therefore harshly criticized by critics of the time, for the design of a modern tower into the historic urban fabric of the city.  
3. Società Cattolica Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design proposal of May 1955. 4. Società Cattolica Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design proposal of May 1955.

    The more than 100-meter high building, the outcome of a troubled design competition - which lozenge shape recalls Gio Ponti and Pier Luigi Nervi’s tower in Milan and Walter Gropius and TAC’s Pan AM building un New York, as well as Le Corbuiser’s 1932 tower for Algiers -  was condemned at the time to also “fatally” compromise the city skyline, in the midst of post – war reconstruction, the emblem of the broader and controversial operation of densification and building of large parts of the city.  

    Different treatment, on the other hand, was given to the designers of the buildings that gutted what is now piazza Giacomo Matteotti in the Rione Carità district, behind the skyscraper, executed throughout the Fascist period. The new administrative and financial district, built between 1931 and 1941, is considered among the largest urban redevelopment plans of fascism. For its construction, an important part of the historic district was entirely demolished. The area, then called the territory of Santa Marta, included large monastic complexes from the 15th century, the 16th century churches of San Giuseppe Maggiore and San Tommaso D'Aquino, several Baroque buildings of considerable historical-artistic value, and the 19th century market of Monte Oliveto.

    Why then, were all the buildings part of this complex, Palazzo delle Regie Poste (today Palazzo delle Poste), Palazzo della Provincia (today Palazzo Matteotti), Palazzo della Questura, Palazzo del Mutilato and Palazzo Troise, criticized  like the skyscraper of Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni ? Why are these buildings still considered among the best examples of Italian Rationalism? Why Marcello Canino, Giuseppe Vaccaro, Gino Franzi, Alessandro Carnelli and Camillo Guerra didn’t receive the same treatment that Stefania Filo Speziale did? Why were they not erased from history as Stefania has been? The different treatment, received many years later by Stefania, was only because of the different political situation - freedom of expression and thought by Fascism were limited - that Italy experienced before and after World War II? Or the fact that these buildings were touted by the regime as necessary to sanitize one of the most cholera-infected parts of the city? How affected was the fact that the architects that designed these buildings, [which stand a few meters from Stefania's skyscraper] were all men? It is widely believed, therefore, that the skyscraper thus overshadowed, and not only literally because of its profile, the many works designed by Stefania Filo Speziale throughout her long career, completely obscuring her memory.

5. Photo of the skyscraper grafted into the urban fabric of the historic district.
    The architect was also accused of building speculations and to be connected to the phenomenon of "Laurismo";  a typically Neapolitan techno-political and social phenomenon of the 1950s linked to the person of Achille Lauro, mayor of Naples from 1952 to 1957, publisher, ship-owner and president of the city's soccer team. The economic development of the 1950s-1960s, resulted in a building boom in Italy due to the movement of large amounts of population to the cities and the increases in economic activities and greater wealth that distributed among all social classes. Cities rapidly expanded, with neither administrations nor architects and urban planners able to govern the phenomenon. In those circumstances, land that was initially for agricultural purposes quickly becomes building sites, as a result of the urban planning laws “customized” by corrupt politicians. The demolition of historic buildings damaged during World War II, constitutes another aspect of this phenomenon. Many historic districts of Italian cities were subject to the forced release of many lots previously occupied by historic buildings and therefore subject to restrictions by the Historic Preservation Board (Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio).

    Many historic buildings, partially damaged, were completely demolished instead of being restored; city centers, as well as suburbs, witnessed an uncontrolled increase in building area, irreparably compromising the built environment of many cities. Naples, which was heavily bombed both by the Nazis and the Allies during World War II, is an emblematic example. The highly visible tower became a symbol of the speculative overbuilding in Naples, even though many low-quality buildings were being erected in the new suburbs as well as in reconstructed neighborhoods near the city center.

    In 1963 with the release of Francesco Rosi's famous film “The Hands on the City” (“Le Mani sulla Città”), awarded with  the Golden Lion at the 1963 Venice Film Festival, when the denunciation of the techno-political system personified by Achille Lauro became a national case, the skyscraper became its symbol. In the feature film, ruthless and unscrupulous builder Edoardo Nottola, dominated the city from the penthouse floor of the building where he had carved out his “headquarters”.
6. Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Film poster. 7. Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Movie opening credits.

    The character of Eduardo Nottola is inspired by the building contractor Mario Ottieri. He was one of the most emblematic figures of the techno-political system “established” by Achille Lauro, in addition to having being his right-hand man, he held the position of Councilor for Public Works throughout his first term as Mayor of Naples. In this same period, significant building speculation projects were developed, which profoundly altered the urban fabric of the city. Among these, the skyscraper of Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni, of which Ottieri won the contract as builder, was certainly the most emblematic.
8. Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Rod Steiger in a scene from the film, behind the skyscraper by Stefania Filo Speziale.
    In the decade from 1952 to 1962 the the socio-political phenomenon of Laurismo and its populist agenda, which was based on a mediatic style of propaganda--proto-Berlusconismo of sorts--  was crucial in its contribution to the dramatic reshaping not only of the urban environment of the city of Naples, but of its society as well. Although Achille Lauro's political coalition somehow managed to revive the city of Naples from the ashes of the war, its administrative system contributed decisively to exacerbating problems that traditionally weighed on the city and on Neapolitan society, such as favoritism - with job placement for the people close to the party as well as works contracts awarded without competition to companies close to the party - disregard for laws and administrative confusion.

    Several years after  my walks along Via Monteoliveto in Naples, while in a crowded subway car of the  no.1 train in New York–the quintessential city of skyscrapers–on my way to Morningside Campus, for attending Professor Mary McLeod’s course Woman, Gender and Modern Architecture, I started reading about the forgotten story of the Lady of Naples. While studying her biography, the question that had been constantly echoing in my mind was always the same: “What sanctioned the final obliteration from the history of Stefania Filo Speziale?”.

    A few days before her death on September 26 1988, facing a hostile environment that had been established around her figure, Stefania destroyed her entire archive. This erasure from history resulted in the continued lack of knowledge about her career; there are no readily available documents for anyone who studies this singular figure of the modern movement. The criticism of the Skyscraper of Società Cattolica Assicurazioni was devastating for Stefania Filo Speziale and effectively marked her definitive damnatio memoriae.

    In the last chapter of a book borrowed from Avery Library–Lo Studio Filo Speziale e il modernismo Partenopeo–that I was reading in that subway car of the no.1 train, there is an interview with Giorgio di Simone, one of her two collaborators. The author asks the architect of how it is possible, despite the many built projects, that to date the figure of Stefania Filo Speziale, is almost unknown. According to Giorgio–

    Stefania did not want to leave a trace about herself on this earth; she considered what she did unimportant. Despite the fact that she was a successful woman in a male chauvinist environment like Naples, despite the fact that she was a Professor and the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, despite her professional achievements, she was very sad about some events that had occurred during  her life. Hence the extreme gesture of destroying her archive, which makes it difficult to reconstruct her work today.

    After reading that interview and reaching/nearing the end of my journey, I walked through the Campus and  towards Buell Hall. I thought of Stefania– how she, after all, wasn't the victim of a “condemnation”, but rather she “proudly” obliterated herself. A strong gesture by a strong woman toward a society that failed to appreciate her as an architect and as a woman. Or as a woman architect. Despite the destruction of her archive, of all her drawings, sketches and notes, the buildings she designed are still towering over the Neapolitan hills.
9. Società Cattolica Assicurazioni Skyscraper, 1956-58.
Bibliography
- Mattia Cocozza. Stefania Filo Speziale: abitare la città Mediterranea. CLEAN Edizioni, Napoli 2022.
- Maglio Andrea, Stefania Filo Speziale. La Signora di Napoli, «Log», 53. Anyone Corporation, New York, 2021.
- LAN. Local Architecture Network (Benoit Jallon e Umberto Napolitano. Napoli Super Modern. Quodlibet, Macerata, 2020.
- Carolina De Falco. Case INA e luoghi Urbani. Storie dell’espansione occidentale di Napoli. CLEAN Edizioni, Napoli, 2018.
- Chiara Ingrosso. Condomini Napoletani: la città privata tra ricostruzione e boom economico. Lettera Ventidue, Siracusa, 2017.
- Marco Burrascano. Lo Studio Filo Speziale e il modernismo partenopeo. Palazzo della Morte. CLEAN Edizioni, Napoli, 2014.
- Roberta Amirante. Stefania Filo Speziale, un destino da prima donna, in DonnArchitettura: pensieri, idee, forme al femminile. Franco Angeli, Naples, 2014.
- Roberto Pane. Napoli. Ieri, oggi e domani Napoli Nobilissima, Napoli, 1984.
- Roberto Pane. Immagini di Napoli nel tempo. Società Editrice Storica di Napoli, Napoli, 1967.
- Roberto Pane. Il grattacielo - Lettere Scarlatte. “Il Mondo”, March 4 1958.
- Bruno Zevi, Bilancio Partenopeo, Cronache di architettura. Laterza, Bari, 1958.
- Fausto Fiorentino, Stefania Filo Speziale, La casa di abitazione. Fausto Fiorentino, Napoli, 1953.
Image Sources
1. Stefania Filo Speziale – elledecor.com
2. Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design competition proposal. - Stefania Filo Speziale. Abitare la città mediterranea. 2022.
3. Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design proposal of May 1955 – Stefania Filo Speziale. Abitare la città mediterranea. 2022.
4. Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni Skyscraper perspective view, design proposal of May 1955 - Stefania Filo Speziale. Abitare la città mediterranea. 2022.
5. Photo of the skyscraper grafted into the urban fabric of the historic district - Stefania Filo Speziale. Abitare la città mediterranea. 2022.
6. Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Film poster. -movieposterdb.com
7. Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Movie opening credits. - go.gale.com
8.Le mani sulla città / Hands over the city. Francesco Rosi, 1963. Rod Steiger in a scene from the film, behind the skyscraper by Stefania Filo Speziale. -artribune.com
9. Società Cattolica di Assicurazioni Skyscraper, 1956-58 - Photo: Cyrille Weiner. Napoli Super Modern. Quodlibet, 2021.
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