Erwin Anton Gutkind [commonly known as Erwin A. Gitkind or Erwin Gutkind] was born in Berlin, Germany, on 20 May 1886. He studied architecture, town planning, history of art and sociology at the Technischen Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg and at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin and was awarded a Dipl-Ing in 1909 and a Dr. Ing in 1914. During World War One, he was employed as a government advisor on reconstruction and town planning. Following the war he established a private architectural practice in Berlin and subsequently designed an apartment hotel for the Hohenzollerdamm and various social housing schemes in Berlin. He also wrote a number of books and articles on town planning and social housing.
When the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, Gutkind, who was Jewish, emigrated to France. Failing to re-establish his architectural career in France, he moved to England in 1935. From 1935 to 1940 he worked as a consultant on international problems of urban and rural settlement, and from 1940 to 1943 was director of the Demographic Survey and Plan which provided research data to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning. He summarised his plan for the post-war reconstruction of Britain in his book Creative Demobilization (1943), which had a foreword by Herbert Read.
Towards the end of the war Gutkind was appointed advisor to the Coal Utilization Research station and, in 1946-47, was a member of the British Control Commission for Germany with responsibility for planning and reconstruction. Following differences of opinion over the Commission's approach to the problem, he resigned. Between 1950 and 1955 he wrote a series of articles and books on environmental planning.
In 1955 Gutkind accepted the post of Professor of City Planning in the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Soon after, he embarked on his monumental 8 volume International History of Urban Development (1964-72). He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 7 August 1968
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