Walter Bor

Walter George Bor CBE (14 October 1916 – 4 October 1999) was an Austrian-born British town planner and architect who was influential in the development of new towns in the UK and elsewhere in the second half of the twentieth century.

Life and career He was born Walter Bukbinder in Vienna, the son of a secular Jewish Czech chemical engineer. He studied architecture at Prague University, before escaping the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 with his friend, the actor Herbert Lom, and travelling to Britain. Many members of his family subsequently died at the Birkenau concentration camp. He then became a partner in the private architectural and planning consultancy of Llewelyn-Davies, Weeks, Forestier-Walker & Bor, and began working on the development of Washington new town, in County Durham, and on a large new urban development, Ciudad Losada, 50 km. south of Caracas in Venezuela. He was appointed as consultant to the Shenzhen Urban Planning Commission in Guangdong, China, and also returned as a consultant to work on the planning of Prague.

He was married three times, and died in 1999 at the age of 82.