Helena Perheentupa (1929- 2019)

- 

The recent passing of Helena Perheentupa in her native Finland has removed from our midst a designer, teacher and colleague whose contributions to Indian design are beyond estimation. During Helena’s long career at the National Institute of Design, she helped build systems of design education and of design practice which then launched pioneering careers and role models. These in turn have influenced almost every effort in the spread of design education and practice throughout India. Helena through her demonstration helped set standards of quality that need to be remembered today as design education proliferates in response to demand, with quality often the victim of a blind rush for numbers. Everything that Helena represented as a teacher, mentor and designer was about careful thought to the processes of ‘learning by doing’, of exposure to the real world, and of the culture of apprenticeship which she believed to be the foundation of all design. While her influence has gone well beyond NID and India, Helena’s inherent modesty left much of her contribution invisible. Yet the standards Helena set continue to challenge and insp