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Zantzinger, Borie and Medary was American architecture firm that operated from 1905 to 1950 in Philadelphia. It specialized in institutional and civic projects.
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For most of its existence, the partners were Clarence C. Zantzinger, Charles Louis Borie Jr. and Milton Bennett Medary, all Philadelphians.
The firm was a launching pad for numerous architects of note, including Dominique Berninger (1898 – 1949) and Louis Kahn (1901/2 – 1974).
Zantzinger & Borie
The firm was established in 1905 as Zantzinger & Borie. Zantzinger and Borie were involved in years of preliminary design work on the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The 1911 commission was shared between Z&B and Horace Trumbauer. Most of the credit for the final building, completed in 1928, is given to architects Howell Lewis Shay and Julian Abele, both from Trumbauer's firm.
After Medary joined in 1910, the firm was renamed Zantzinger, Borie & Medary.
Zantzinger, Borie & Medary
The firm collaborated with Paul Philippe Cret for the completed buildings listed below, and on proposals for the Nebraska State Capitol and the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.
When Medary died in 1929, the firm returned to its original name.
The firm was the first recorded American employer of French-born American architect Dominique Berninger, who worked there from 1925 to 1932. During this time he served as job captain for their design project of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, a project that cost around $1,250,000. Kahn and Berninger had met while working at the firm and went on to form the Architectural Research Group (ARG) in Philadelphia, a short-lived collaborative society from 1932 to 1935 before Kahn took a job with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, while Berninger commenced his own practice in 1933 and later formed the partnership of Berninger & Bower (fl.1935 – 1945), the predecessor firm of Haag & d'Entremont (fl.1946 – 1988).
As a young man in 1930 through 1932, Louis Kahn worked for both Cret and for Z&B. The firm also worked with former Bertram Goodhue collaborators sculptor Lee Lawrie and iconographer Hartley Burr Alexander, among others.
The firm dissolved in 1950.