Helen B. Bechtel
hbechtel@hbcuratorial.org
Helen Brown Bechtel is an architect and independent curator who specializes in exhibitions that feature design and the built environment.
Helen’s current exhibition, “The Tuskegee Chapel: Paul Rudolph X Fry&Welch” is currently on view at the Yale School of Architecture from January 9 – July 5, 2025. This exhibition features the collaboration between architects Paul Rudolph, Louis Fry, Sr. and John Welch in the design and construction of the Tuskegee Chapel, a landmarked building completed in 1969 at the center of the historic Tuskegee University campus.
Previously, Helen was the Curator for Special Projects at the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building, partnering with architect and artist Suchi Reddy, curator Isolde Breilmaier, and teams at Amazon Web Services and Autodesk to establish two works of installation architecture for the 2022 exhibition Futures.
In 2017, as a Guest Curator at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. she organized and curated an invited competition titled “Above the Renwick” to establish a new work of installation architecture in the museum’s largest gallery space. She established the jury that selected “Parallax Gap” by FreelandBuck as the winner, and oversaw its 5-month run at the museum. The Renwick is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum with a collection that focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th century to the present.
Helen has served as an adjunct professor in the Design and Decorative Arts department at the Corcoran School of Art at George Washington University and on the editorial board of Cite: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston. She began her career in the Curatorial Department of Architecture and Design at SFMOMA and as an architect for Beyer Blinder Belle in New York, NY.
Helen earned a BA in Urban Studies and Civil Engineering from Stanford and a Masters in Architecture from Yale. At Yale she received the Gene Lewis Book Prize for excellence in residential architecture and was nominated for the Feldman Prize for her Advanced Studio work.
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