Sir Edward "Michael" Coulson Fowler, FNZIA, (born 19 December 1929), is a New Zealand architect and author who served as Mayor of Wellington from 1974 to 1983.
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He was born in 1929 in Marton, and was educated at Christ's College in Christchurch.
Wellington's principal concert performance hall, the Michael Fowler Centre, commemorates in its name Sir Michael.[1]
Fowler designed Wellington's Overseas Passenger Terminal in the early 1960s, which was to have served international passenger ships, but never saw its intended use due to the rising popularity of air travel. In an interview many years later, he said that he "was party to the design of the biggest white elephant that Wellington ever built."[2]
Fowler's 1977 re-election campaign was against Carmen, who ran with the support of local businessman Sir Bob Jones, with the slogans Get in Behind and Carmen for Mayor and a platform of gay marriage and legalised brothels (though neither of these are local-government matters in New Zealand).[3]
Fowler was criticised for his comments in May 2011 where he backed a controversial Wellywood sign in a handwritten letter to The Dominion Post, describing its critics as "dumb, humourless, totally irrelevant and probably Irish". When later questioned, he was unapologetic stating that his comment "wasn't meant to be derogatory." Irish residents in New Zealand expressed outrage at the comments.[4]