William Dunkel (born New Jersey 26 March 1893, died Kilchberg, ZH 10 September 1980) was a Swiss architect and painter.

He worked in Germany until 1929 when he relocated to Switzerland upon obtaining a teaching job at the ETH (technical university) in Zürich.

He received his doctorate from Dresden in 1917 from Cornelius Gurlitt, for a dissertation entitled "Beiträge zur Entwicklung des Städtebaues in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika" ("Contributions to the development of town planning in America") Because of the dire state of the economy, Dunkel's first work after the First World War was not as an architect but as an advertisement artist in Düsseldorf.

At this time he was able to network with other artists such as Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Max Liebermann and Oskar Kokoschka.

Nevertheless, two of his firm's most ambitious designs for public buildings remained unbuilt because they were rejected in cantonal referendums: the 60,000 seat "Oktogon stadium" (1953, actually designed by Dunkel's assistant, Justus Dahinden) and a new city theatre (1961) for Zürich, inspired by Alvar Aalto's theatre in Essen.