Tafel served in a photographic analysis unit during World War II, afterwards opening his own architectural office in New York City. One of his best known works as a solo practitioner is the Mellin Macnab Building for the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. Tafel's design combined Prairie School influences with the Gothic style of the sanctuary, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission called it "a fine example of contemporary design... used intelligently, to bring a much needed contemporary building into harmony with a neighborhood." The building received a design award from the Fifth Avenue Association. Tafel's other designs included the Protestant Chapel at Kennedy International Airport, which is no longer extant, and St. John's in the Village Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village, built in 1972-1974, replacing a sanctuary which burned down in 1971 with a new Greek Revival-influenced modern design. He was also responsible for the 1964 master plan for the campus of SUNY Geneseo and its "design gem" Brodie Hall, as well as the college's South Village residential complex, the 1947 Silver House in Racine, Wisconsin, the North Wing expansion to the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania and the private home of Florence and Isaac Budovitch in Wilmington, Delaware. He was also the master designer for community colleges in Johnstown and Hudson, New York. Overall, Tafel designed 80 houses, 35 churches and other religious buildings and three college campuses.
Later life
Tafel also wrote books, including Apprentice to Genius: Years with Frank Lloyd Wright and About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright, which he also edited, as well as producing The Frank Lloyd Wright Way, a film which won first prize at the 1995 Houston International Film Festival. In 2006, Tafel gave $3.2 million to Cornell University's Department of Architecture. to endow the Edgar A. Tafel Professorship in Architecture and the Tafel Architecture Lecture Series. Tafel died at the age of 98 in New York City on January 18, 2011. He was the last member of the original Taliesin Fellows to die. Tafel had been married twice, ending respectively in divorce and the death of his second wife in 1951. He had no children. Following his death, his architectural archive was donated to the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library of Columbia University in New York City. His collection includes information on Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as drawings and other items related to Tafel's own architectural practice.
