H. Mather Lippincott Jr., 88, Quaker architect

H. Mather Lippincott Jr., 88, of Haverford, a Quaker architect, died Monday, Sept. 20, at Crozer-Chester Medical Center of injuries suffered in a car accident the previous day. Mr. Lippincott and his wife, Margaret Walker Lippincott, were driving to Rose Valley on Baltimore Pike when the accident occurred. She is recovering from her injuries.

Mr. Lippincott specialized in designing and renovating Quaker schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and meetinghouses from North Carolina to Maine.

In 1978, he designed the Friends Center on Cherry Street in Philadelphia. The office and conference complex incorporated a historic meetinghouse that a Lippincott ancestor helped establish in 1856.

Mr. Lippincott designed the Birmingham Township Municipal Building in Chester County in 1986 to resemble Quaker meetinghouses in the region.

His architectural firm was the recipient of several design and historic preservation awards, and in the 1970s won an international competition for plans for a memorial on a mountaintop overlooking Canberra, Australia, dedicated to Walter Burley Griffin, the architect who designed the city.

Mr. Lippincott cherished the role of master builder and his longtime membership in the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia, said one of his sons, Evan, who is also an architect.

Mr. Lippincott and his wife raised a family in a home he built in Rose Valley that featured interior tulip poplar paneling from trees on the property. Recently he had been supervising renovations to the Delta Psi Fraternity House on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Mr. Lippincott, who earned an architectural degree from the University of Pennsylvania, formed the firm of Cope & Lippincott Architects with his college roommate, Paul M. Cope Jr., in 1956. In the early 1960s they partnered with architect Robert Venturi on the commission for the iconic Guild House, a Quaker-sponsored retirement residence at Seventh and Spring Garden Streets in Philadelphia. Venturi's design, incorporating arched and square windows in a brick facade punctuated by a sign in Franklin gothic script, launched his career as a postmodernist.

Mr. Lippincott graduated from Westtown School, where his future wife's father was headmaster, and earned a bachelor's degree from Haverford College.

A birthright Quaker, he reported for his Army preinduction physical in 1943, clutching a sheaf of papers stamped with the letters C.O. - which brought him salutes from sergeants who thought the letters meant "commanding officer," not "conscientious objector."

It made no difference, he later told The Inquirer. He was designated 4F because he was nearsighted.

He felt an obligation to help his country, so he became an ambulance driver in Italy for the American Field Service, a Quaker organization. He rescued more than 1,000 wounded British soldiers in Sicily and later the bloody assault on Monte Cassino.

Mr. Lippincott was active in the Friends Philadelphia Yearly Meeting for more than 50 years. He served on the Friends General Conference Central Committee, and on the boards of the American Friends Service Committee and Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center in Wallingford. He was former clerk of the Media Friends Meeting.

In his youth, Mr. Lippincott, who was 6-foot-7, was a talented soccer player. Later, in the 1960s, he was president of the former Philadelphia Soccer Corp.

He was a past president of the Savoy Opera Company and sang in the Union League Glee Club and the Men of Rose Valley Chorus. He was chairman of the Art and Library Committees at the Union League.

Mr. Lippincott is survived by his wife of 63 years; sons Robert, James, Hugh, and Evan; and nine grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, at Friends Meeting, 1515 Cherry St., Philadelphia.