Margaret Staal-Kropholler (1891–1966) is regarded as the first woman architect in the Netherlands. She completed her first work as an unqualified architect in 1917. Less well known is that Grada Wolffensperger (1887–1965) became the first woman to complete the univer-sity course in architecture at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft that same year. A further twenty women had completed their architectural training by 1945.

Why and how did these women become architects at a time when women w...