MUNDIE, William Bryce (1863-1939), a native of Hamilton, Ont. and grandson of the prominent Canadian landscape gardener William Mundie (1811-1858). Born in Hamilton, Ont. on 30 April 1863, he attended public schools and Hamilton Collegiate Institute. Encouraged by his father, he took an interest in architecture and served an apprenticeship in the office of Charles W. Mulligan, a leading Hamilton architect, from 1880 until early 1884. It was there that he developed his skills as a delineator and draftsman. After moving to Chicago in April 1884, he was immediately hired to work as an assistant in the office of William LeBaron Jenney, a leading architect and pioneer of the steel-framed skyscraper. While working under Jenney, Mundie was called upon by his mentor back in Hamilton, Ontario to prepare presentation drawings of Mulligan’s winning design for the Hamilton City Hall. One of these drawings, showing this Canadian project and signed “W. Bryce Mundie, delt.”, was later published in the Inland Architect, the leading architectural journal in the American mid-west (Inland Architect [Chicago], vii, July 1886, 99 and plate illus.).
Mundie made rapid progress as assistant in William Jenney’s office, and in January 1891 he was invited to become a full partner with Jenney. When Mulligan later moved to Chicago in 1892, it was logical that he would join the office of Jenney & Mundie, where his younger student was now a partner, and to assist them with several projects on the drawing boards, including the Horticultural Building at the World’s Columbia Exposition (1893), the central Y.M.C.A. Building (1893), the New York Life Building (1894), and the Morton Building (1896), all in Chicago. In 1899 he took on additional responsibilities of Chief Architect to the Chicago School Board , and held that position for four years until November 1903 (Evening Times [Hamilton], 19 Nov. 1903, 5; inf. Robert Hamilton). Over the course of the next 45 years, Mundie continued to practise architecture in the following Chicago firms, and to briefly serve as Staff Architect for the Chicago School Board:
Jenney & Mundie, Chicago, 1891 to 1904
William Mundie, staff architect, Chicago School Board, Dec. 1899 to Nov. 1903
Jenney, Mundie & Jensen, Chicago, 1905 to late 1906
Mundie & Jensen, Chicago, 1907 to 1935
Mundie, Jensen, Bourke & Havens, Chicago, 1936 to 1939
Mundie died at Evanston, Illinois on 27 March 1939 (obituary and port. Chicago Tribune, 28 March 1939, 20; biog. and port. J. Clark Herringshaw, City Blue Book of Current Biography: Chicagoans of 1915, 317; biog. in H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 434; Frank A. Randall, History of Chicago Buildings, 1949, 368, 371, list of works by Mundie, and by Jenney & Mundie; inf. Susan Glover Godlewski, Art Institute of Chicago).