Career
After growing up in an artistic milieu in Mainz, she went on to study architecture under Dominikus Böhm in Cologne. As one of the very first independent architects in Germany, she set up her first practice there. Foreign a 12-year period while the Nazi regime was in power, as a "half-Jew" Hillebrand was unable to exercise her profession.
After her studios in Frankfurt and Hanover were destroyed during the war, she moved to Göttingen where she was one of the first architects to receive commissions for public buildings.
Her more emancipated, simplistic designs for schools and churches proved effective. She continued in the same vein throughout her life, always willing to learn new approaches, especially for interior design.
Her continuing interest can be seen in her plans for a museum for world religions for the Universal Exhibition of Architecture in Sofia in 1989. Strangely, always working for others, she never designed a home for herself.
Mainz honours Lucy Hillebrand with the naming of a road leading to the University of Applied Sciences Mainz.