BRENDA DYER SZABO

SZABO, Brenda Dyer Architect and Planner Brenda Dyer Szabo died in Lexington, Massachusetts on October 13, 2017. Born in Beverly, Massachusetts on April 18, 1926 to Margaret (Connolly) and James Dyer, she grew up in Newburyport. Brenda received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College in 1948, and her Master in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1951 where she studied under Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus in Germany. It was at the Graduate School of Design that Brenda met Albert Szabo, whom she married in West Newbury in 1951. Brenda practiced architecture in New York, Chicago, Cambridge, MA and Kabul, Afghanistan. She was principal in the firms Szabo Associates and Soltan/Szabo, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She taught architecture at the University of Kabul as a Fulbright Hayes lecturer in 1974 and was architectural consultant to the American International School there. While living in Kabul she co-authored with Szabo, "Preliminary Notes on the Indigenous Architecture of Afghanistan." It was published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1978. After her return from Afghanistan she was a project & campus planner at the Harvard University Planning Office from 1975 to 1989. She was instrumental in making the campus more universally accessible; she stressed the importance of a "front door" approach to accessibility and worked to balance this without compromising the integrity of a building's design or character. After Brenda retired from Harvard, she began writing critiques on contemporary architecture that she found significant in the United States and Japan. Her work was published in a wide variety of Milanese journals and magazines specialized in contemporary architecture and design. Brenda was an avid reader of challenging novels, poetry and biographies that illuminated eras and personalities. She had a particular appreciation for the Transcendental Movement, The Bloomsbury Group, Magic Realism, and for William Shakespeare. She is survived by her four children, Ellen Bryna Szabo of Gloucester, Stephen Marc Szabo and his wife Alison of Merrimac, Rebecca Dyer Szabo and her husband Vieri Salvadori of Italy, and Jeannette Dyer Szabo of Hudson. Brenda had four grandchildren: Andrew, James and Stephen Laughlin, and Emily Szabo. In addition to her husband Albert, Brenda was predeceased by her sister Mary Dyer Walch, her brother, Jack Dyer, and her son-in-law, Mark Laughlin. In lieu of flowers, donations in Brenda's memory may be made to the Trustees of Reservations, 200 High Street, Boston, MA 02110. This organization had a special meaning to Brenda since they have custody and control of Misery Island off the coast of Beverly where she spent many summers as a child and always cherished the memories. Ms. Szabo's remains will be interred next to her husband's at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge at a later date. Interment will be private. Arrangements by the Douglass Funeral Home, Lexington, MA.

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