DONALDSON & MEIER, architects of Detroit, Mich. are credited with the design of at least three projects in Windsor, Ont., and in Walkerville, Ont. in the late 19th C. John M. Donaldson was born in Stirling, Scotland on 17 January 1854 and was brought to the United States as a child and educated in Detroit, Mich. He trained there with Henry T. Brush (in 1876-79), and opened an office under his own name in 1880. In 1882 he formed a partnership with Henry J. Meier (1858-1917), and the firm of Donaldson & Meier was active for the next 35 years until the death of Meier on 25 January 1917. Their major works in Detroit include the Belle Isle Casino (1884), First Unitarian Church (1890), the Union Trust Building (1894-95), and Alumni Memorial Hall, on the University of Michigan Central Campus (1911). Elsewhere, their works include St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, Port Huron, Mich (1922-23), and Beaumont Memorial Tower at Michigan State University in East Lansing (1928). Donaldson died in Detroit on 20 December 1941 (obit. New York Times, 23 Dec. 1941, 21; biog. in Who Was Who in America 1897-1942, 1943, 331; H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 178-79; biog. and port. in National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1954, xxxix, 401-02). After the death of Henry J. Meier in 1917, his son Harry W. Meier continued to work in partnership with J.M. Donaldson until 1937 (obituary for Harry W. Meier in Detroit Free Press, 21 Dec. 1937, 24).
WINDSOR, ONT., commercial block containing a bank and offices, Ouellette Avenue at Sandwich Street, 1883; demol. 1955 (Detroit Free Press, 8 April 1883, 14; Andrew Foot, Windsor Then & Now, 2021, 80-81, illus.)
WINDSOR, ONT., block of stores for L.R. Medbury, 1888 (Engineering & Building Record [New York], xviii, 21 July 1888, 96)
WALKERVILLE, ONT., Parke, Davis & Co., laboratory and warehouse, 1898; with addition of a large three storey warehouse, 1903 (Detroit Free Press, 1 May 1898, 9; and 20 Sept. 1903, 11)
TORONTO, ONT., Manufacturers Life Insurance Co.., Bay Street at Melinda Street, office block, 1907 (Toronto Daily Star, 11 April 1907, 8)