Roger Margerum was an influential Black Modernist architect known for his geometric designs and for being an early trailblazer in a predominately white-dominated industry.

He was born May 14, 1930, in Chicago, and at age 10, signed up for Saturday classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He attended DePaul University and received an architecture degree from the University of Illinois in 1955. After graduating, he was hired at the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He later worked at the Chicago firm Holabird & Root, but moved to Detroit in 1968, taking a job at Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. In 1973, he opened his own firm. In 1984, he was selected as president of the Michigan Society of Architects.

He cited Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as an influence, and Margerum's designs often feature lots of lights and angles. But his favorite design, he said, was a picnic shelter at Riverside Park near the Ambassador Bridge, which was beautiful in its simplicity.

Margerum closed his practice in 2000, when his wife, Fran, asked him to design a house for her. The house at 430 Kitchener St. faces the street at a 45-degree angle and overlooks the Grayhaven Marina. It is one of the most unique houses in the city.

“I had to satisfy her, but also myself,” Margerum told Detroit Design Magazine in 2009. “And the only way to satisfy myself was to design something architecturally significant. I believe I’ve done that. To my knowledge, no one before has used the 45-degree polygon as a rigid module."

Margerum died June 21, 2016, in Detroit, after complications from a stroke.