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Taylor & Fisher
Practice information
Founders	R. E. Lee Taylor; D. K. Este Fisher Jr.
Founded	1927
Dissolved	1978
Location	Baltimore

The Baltimore Trust Company Building, later the Bank of America Building, designed by Taylor & Fisher and Smith & May and completed in 1929.

The Hagerstown City Hall, designed by Taylor & Fisher and Amos J. Klinkhart and completed in 1940.

The Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, completed in 1967.

Taylor & Fisher was an American architectural firm active in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1927 by architects R. E. Lee Taylor FAIA (1882–1952) and D. K. Este Fisher Jr. FAIA (1892–1978).

History and partners

Taylor & Fisher developed from the Baltimore office of Parker, Thomas & Rice, which had been established in Boston and Baltimore in 1900. When Douglas H. Thomas Jr., the local partner, died in 1915, the surviving partners invited R. E. Lee Taylor, an MIT graduate then practicing in Norfolk, Virginia, to lead the office.

Robert Edward Lee Taylor was born April 9, 1882 in Norfolk, Virginia. He was the youngest child of Colonel Walter H. Taylor, aide-de-camp to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and Elizabeth Selden (Saunders) Taylor. He attended Norfolk Academy, the University of Virginia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, graduating from the latter in 1904. He worked for architect Herbert D. Hale, Trowbridge & Livingston and Butler & Rodman in New York City and Wyatt & Nolting in Baltimore before returning to Norfolk in 1906. There, he formed a partnership, Taylor & Hepburn, with his former classmate Andrew H. Taylor. They worked together until 1909, when Hepburn returned to Boston. Taylor then joined the firm of Ferguson & Calrow, which then became Ferguson, Calrow & Taylor. In 1912, with this firm, Taylor completed his first major project, the thirteen-story Royster Building. In 1916 he was invited to lead the Baltimore office of Parker, Thomas & Rice, a Boston and Baltimore firm whose local partner, Thomas, had recently died.

In 1924 the Baltimore partnership was expanded to include D. K. Este Fisher Jr., an employee since 1919.

David Kirkpatrick Este Fisher Jr. was born February 2, 1892 in Baltimore. He attended Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating in 1916. He worked for Kenneth M. Murchison in New York City until 1917, when he enlisted in the American Expeditionary Forces at the beginning of America's entrance into World War I. When he left service in 1919 he returned to Baltimore, where he joined Taylor in the office of Parker, Thomas & Rice, becoming his partner in 1924.

In 1927 Taylor and Fisher's Boston partners, J. Harleston Parker and Arthur W. Rice, withdrew from the Baltimore partnership. The two then reestablished the firm as Taylor & Fisher. Taylor died in 1952, and Fisher continued the firm under the same name, forming a new partnership in 1954 with Warren A. Bowersock, formerly an employee of the firm from 1935 to 1949. In 1973 the firm's name was changed from Taylor & Fisher to Taylor, Fisher, Bowersock & Martin, which it remained until Fisher's death in 1978.

Both Taylor and Fisher were active members in the American Institute of Architects, joining in 1916 and 1921, respectively. Both served as president of the Baltimore chapter, and both were elected Fellows, Taylor in 1938 and Fisher in 1946.

Architectural works

• Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Baltimore Branch, 114 E Lexington St, Baltimore, Maryland (1926–27 and 1956, NRHP 1983)
• Bank of America Building, 10 Light St, Baltimore, Maryland (1928–29)
• Monumental Life Building, 1111 N Charles St, Baltimore, Maryland (1928)
• McCarter Theatre, 91 University Pl, Princeton, New Jersey (1929–30)
• Hagerstown City Hall, 1 E Franklin St, Hagerstown, Maryland (1939–40)
• Telephone Building, 320 St Paul Pl, Baltimore, Maryland (1939–41 and 1944)
• Akron Union Station (former), 220 Wolf Ledges Pkwy, Akron, Ohio (1949–50, altered)
• Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, 3500 Hillen Rd, Baltimore, Maryland (1952–53)
• Kenwood High School, 501 Stemmers Run Rd, Baltimore, Maryland (1955)
• Pimlico Junior High School (former), 4849 Pimlico Rd, Baltimore, Maryland (1955–56)
• Notre Dame Preparatory School, 815 Hampton Ln, Towson, Maryland (1960)
• McCauley Tower of Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland (1962–63)
• Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, 1400 W Cold Spring Ln, Baltimore, Maryland (1966–67)