Background
Fowler was born in 1929 in Marton, the son of William Coulson Fowler and Faith Agnes Netherclift.
Fowler was born in 1929 in Marton, the son of William Coulson Fowler and Faith Agnes Netherclift.
He was educated at Manchester Street School in Feilding and Christ"s College in Christchurch, and completed a Master of Architecture at The University of Auckland.
In 1957 he returned to New Zealand where he worked in his own practice: Calder, Fowler, Styles and Turner in Wellington. In the early 1960s, Fowler designed Wellington"s Overseas Passenger Terminal, which was to have served international passenger ships, but never saw its intended use due to the rising popularity of air traveling In an interview many years later, he said that he "was party to the design of the biggest white elephant that Wellington ever built."
He is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects.
Fowler was first elected to the Wellington City Council in 1968, and was elected mayor in 1974, a post that he held until 1983.
His 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 (although neither of these are local-government matters in New Zealand). Wellington"s principal concert performance hall, the Michael Fowler Centre, opened in 1983, was named in his honour.
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.