Milton B. Medary Jr.

Milton Bennett Medary Jr., FAIA, attended the University of Pennsylvania for one year before joining the Philadelphia architecture firm of Frank Miles Day in 1891. He remained there until 1894, when he opened his own firm in that city, Field & Medary; that firm would eventually become Zantzinger, Borie & Medary in 1910. Medary was a design consultant to several universities, the Roosevelt Memorial Association, and Mount Vernon. He was the designer of numerous buildings, including the Pennsylvania Athletic Club, Bryn Mawr Hospital and, with Paul Cret, the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts. Medary served as chairman of the Department of Labor’s United States Housing Corporation during World War I and was selected in 1927 by Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon to serve on the Board of Architectural Consultants, which was advising the department on the design of the Federal Triangle redevelopment. He served on the National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Washington, D.C., was president of both the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Philadelphia chapter, and was affiliated with the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was honored by the AIA with a gold medal in 1929, by the Philadelphia Art Club with a gold medal in 1927, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pennsylvania in 1927.