Mendelssohn, Fisher and Lawrie


Mendelssohn, Fisher and Lawrie was a significant architecture firm in early Omaha, Nebraska. Fisher & Lawrie continued. A number of their works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

Louis Mendelssohn was born in Berlin, Germany in 1842, and studied in New York City, United States before forming the partnership of Dufrene and Mendelssohn in Omaha in 1881. The pair were responsible for designing the 1884 Christian Specht Building in Downtown Omaha. The following year Mendelssohn left Dufrene to partner with George Fisher, with whom he operated a firm until 1886. Fisher was born in Michigan in 1856, and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1880 with a degree in civil engineering. Eventually, Harry Lawrie, born in Glasgow, Scotland in est 1858, who had nine years of experience in Glasgow and Edinburgh before immigrating to Chicago in 1883, moved to Omaha and joined the firm in 1887. During Omaha's building boom in the 1880s and 90s the firm designed several significant buildings. Mendelssohn left in 1893, leaving Fisher and Lawrie to continue until 1913.
Fisher died in 1931, and Lawrie died in 1935.

Notable designs

;works by Durfene & Mendelssohn
;works by Mendelssohn & Lawrie
;works by Mendelssohn, Fisher & Lawrie
;works by Fisher & Lawrie
;works by Lawrie and others