Peter Oberlander

Heinz Peter Oberlander, (November 29, 1922 – December 27, 2008) was a Canadian architect and Canada's first professor of Urban and Regional Planning.

Early life and education Born in Vienna, Austria, he settled in Britain with his family after fleeing the Anschluss in 1938. In 1940, he was deported to Canada where he was held in a series of internment camps. Presumed to be a "dangerous enemy alien", he was finally released in 1942, and received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from McGill University in 1945. After McGill graduation in architecture, Oberlander was the first Canadian to obtain the Master of Urban Planning and subsequently a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from Harvard University. Thus started a pioneer career in education and practice of community and regional planning.

Teaching and research The impending post-war urban development boom compelled Oberlander to plead for the need to educate urban planners in Canada, with explicit federal government fellowship support, now a forty-year-old tradition. N.A.M. Mackenzie, then President of the University of British Columbia and member of the Massey Commission, was intrigued by this simple idea, and within six months invited Oberlander to come to Vancouver and launch UBC Canada's first full professional program in Community and Regional Planning. Four decades of teaching and research followed, during which Oberlander became the founding Director of the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning, and subsequently founding Director of the Centre for Human Settlements, devoted to planning research.

Government career In 1970, Oberlander was called to Ottawa to initiate the Federal Government's Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, and become its inaugural Secretary (Deputy Minister). During his three-year tenure he created a process of tri-level consultation on urban development between federal, provincial and municipal governments, leading to planned re-use of redundant federal lands for local community needs; Vancouver's Granville Island and Toronto's Harbourfront are two examples.

Oberlander was posthumously awarded with the United Nations Scroll of Honour Award on World Habitat Day, October 4, 2009, for his work and dedication to improving global urban living conditions.

Personal life In 1953 Oberlander married landscape architect Cornelia Hahn. The couple, who had three children, occasionally cooperated on urban planning and landscape architecture projects.