Architect Margaret Helfand Dies in New York

Architect Margaret Helfand, a former president of the American Institute of Architects’ New York chapter, died last month. She was 59.

The cause was complications of colon cancer.

Helfand, who also helped create the Center for Architecture, the home of the New York chapter, served as president in 2001. She was also a co-chairman of New York New Visions, a civic group that advised government agencies on urban design and planning guidelines for the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the World Trade Center.

After working for big architecture firms like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Marcel Breuer Associates and with a smaller one, Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer, she opened her own firm in 1981. According to an obituary in The New York Times, “her designs emphasized clean elemental forms, the use of natural materials and the integration of her buildings with the surrounding landscape. Her Swarthmore Science Center, for example, was built from local schist stone and included a sunken garden that spilled out toward the woods.”

Born in Pasadena, Calif., in 1947, she attended Swarthmore College from 1965 to 1968 and completed her undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. In 1970 she attended the Architectural Association school in London, where she also studied at the International Institute of Design.

The Times noted that Helfand spoke out frequently on the challenges of rebuilding at ground zero. When the work of the eight finalists in the design competition for a World Trade Center Memorial went on view at the World Financial Center in 2003, she was quoted in an article in The New York Times as calling for a higher level of design. “I yearn for something simple with no moving parts, like a Mayan pyramid,” she said. “What did they understand that somehow we don’t?”