Peter Trapolin, a New Orleans architect acclaimed for his work in preserving buildings and designing structures that blended with their environments, died Saturday of cancer in his New Orleans home. He was 70.

“He was skilled as a classical architect, and he understood modern architecture, and he brought them together,” said Tony Gelderman, a businessman and preservationist. “He understood the vernacular of New Orleans, and he brought that to his practice.”

His firm, Trapolin-Peer Architects, which he founded in 1981, has designed buildings across the Gulf Coast. In New Orleans, the firm’s projects include the Sazerac House; the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation headquarters; the Historic New Orleans Collection; the Lafayette Hotel; Richardson Memorial Hall, where Trapolin studied a

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