Sir Edward Michael Coulson Fowler (19 December 1929 – 12 July 2022) was a New Zealand architect and author who served as mayor of Wellington from 1974 to 1983.

[1][2] Fowler started his career in 1954 at the London office of Ove Arup and Partner, and became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1955.

[2] In 1957, he returned to New Zealand, working initially as a self-employed architect in Wellington, and in partnership (Calder, Fowler, Styles and Turner) from 1959 to 1989.

[6] Four years later he stood for the parliamentary seat of Hutt in the 1972 general election for the National Party where he came runner up to Labour's Trevor Young.

[7] Fowler was elected mayor of Wellington in 1974, in a very tight race with long-serving incumbent Sir Frank Kitts, a post that he held until he retired in 1983.

He was opposed by heritage lobbies over the mass demolitions but was fiercely counter-critical of those advocating building preservation, and once went as far as to describe them as "jackbooted zealots".

[16] 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".

The appointment caused some controversy, with allegations of cronyism coming from the opposition Labour Party given Fowler's history as a National candidate.