Holdings Information

Bibliographic Record Display

• Title:Peter Oberlander fonds
  
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• Author/Creator:Oberlander, Peter
  
• Published/Created:1943-2010
  

• Holdings

  Holdings Record Display

  • Location:UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES ASRS storageWhere is this?
    
  • Call Number:
    
  • Number of Items:77
    
  • Status:c.1 Box 6 Requested
    c.1 Box 9 Requested
    c.1 Box 12 Requested
    c.1 Box 14 Requested
    c.1 Box 22 Requested
    c.1 Box 24 Requested
    

   
• Description:6.27 m of textual records.
  76 photographs.
  18 audio recordings.
  14 video recordings.
  
• Summary:The fonds consists of notes, award nominations, clippings, correspondence, memos, invitations, evaluations, minutes, memorandum, telegraphs, drafts, essays, articles, newspapers, agendas, pamphlets, notecards, reports, plans, maps, posters and photographs. The fonds is divided into six series: Personal; Teaching Materials; Lectures, Conferences and Writings; Professional Life; Photographs; and Audiovisual Materials. The Professional Life and Lectures, Conferences, and Writings series are further divided into sub-series.
  
• Biography/history note:Born November 29, 1922 in Vienna, Austria, Peter Oberlander was expelled with his family in the 1930s on religious grounds. His first home in Canada was an internment camp in Quebec. Released in the fall of 1941, Oberlander began to study in the School of Architecture at McGill where he developed and refined an interest in the issues surrounding public housing and planning. After graduation from McGill in 1945, Oberlander went on to study at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and graduated in 1947 with a Master of City Planning. In July 1948 he joined the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Department of Research and Education. In that capacity, Oberlander wrote a brief to the Massey Commission on the national development of the arts, sciences and letters, arguing that Canada needed to train its own planners and stop relying on UK and US architects. Dr. Norman MacKenzie, then President of UBC and a member of the Commission, attracted Oberlander to Vancouver to launch Canada's first professional program in Community and Regional Planning within the newly established School of Graduate Studies. The School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) was established in 1954 with an interdisciplinary approach to planning which continues to this day. In 1957, Oberlander himself became the first Canadian to attain a doctorate in Regional Planning from Harvard. His thesis was "Town Planning and Housing, Step Children of Canadian Federalism." On a personal note, Oberlander married Cornelia Hahn in 1953. The pair would collaborate together extensively on professional projects throughout their marriage. Oberlander was the co-founder of the Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board (1949) shaping development in the Lower Fraser Valley. While Chair of Vancouver's Town Planning Commission (1967), he resigned in opposition to a freeway proposal, hastening its demise, an action that is today seen as saving the city for a better future. In 1970 Oberlander was appointed Secretary of the newly established Federal Ministry of State for Urban Affairs. Oberlander was viewed internationally as an expert in planning. In 1958 he was asked by the UN to assist Ghana in developing a housing policy, and established the Institute for Community Planning at the University of Science and Technology at Kumasi. Later, he developed a Diploma Program in Community and Regional Planning at UBC designed to meet the special needs of students from Indonesia, India and the Philippines. The 1976 the UN Conference on Human Settlements, "Habitat I", led to the creation of the UBC Centre for Human Settlements, a depository for audio-visual materials from the conference and a focus for follow-up research, under the directorship of Oberlander. Oberlander also had a major role in organizing the program of the third World Urban Forum (WUF 3) in 2006 in Vancouver around his lifelong commitment to the motto "Ideas into Action". Oberlander's achievements within planning were recognized by being the first Canadian elected to serve as President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and the American Society of Planning Officials, and by the President's Lifetime Achievement Award of the Canadian Institute of Planners at its inaugural presentation in 2006. Among other numerous awards and honours in Canada were Officer, Order of Canada (2002) and an Honourary Doctorate, UBC (1998). Peter served as a Canadian Citizenship Court Judge between 1998 and 2005. In November 2008, just months before his death, Peter and Cornelia Oberlander received a Civic Merit Award from the City of Vancouver. Oberlander remained professor Emeritus at SCARP until his death in December 2008 and was posthumously awarded 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.
  
• Notes:Title based on the contents of the fonds.
  Photographs include prints, slides, and negatives.
  Donated to University Archives by Cornelia Oberlander in several accruals in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2018.
  With the first accrual came the minutes and agendas for the VCC and VSB. As these are available through the City of Vancouver Archives the decision to remove them was made. As well, the organization of the creator was preserved. For example, all correspondence, including correspondence to Oberlander in his capacity as Director of the UBC School of Planning, was labeled "personal".