Guttenberg, Albert Z. (1921-) | University of Illinois Archives

ALBERT Z. GUTTENBERG (1921-2012)

Albert Z. Guttenberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor of Urban and Regional Planning (1964-1989), is internationally recognized for his research in the areas of planning theory; the standardization of land use classification; the language of planning; population and land settlement policy; urban structures and functions; Dutch Woonerf neighborhood design, and urban and regional planning history.

Albert Ziskind Guttenberg was born November 6, 1921 in Chelsea, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelors of Arts in Social Relations (sociology, cultural anthropology, and social psychology) from Harvard College in 1948, and his Master Degrees in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1951, and City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania in 1959.

Guttenberg first entered the planning field in 1954, and worked as planner for the Portland, Maine Planning Board (1954-1956). He then became a Planning Analyst and Chief of the General Plans and Programming Section of the Comprehensive Planning Division at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission (1956-1960), and Senior Planner for the National Capital Downtown Committee in Washington, D.C. (1962-1963).  In 1964, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Associate Professor (1964-1969) and Professor (1969-1989). He taught courses on the language and philosophy of planning, urban structure and function, land use issues, and planning history up until his retirement in 1989.

Albert Guttenberg is internationally and nationally known for his research the language of planning, land use classification, and the standardization of terminology. In 1977-1979, Guttenberg took a leave of absence from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to work as a visitor Professor and Chair in Urban and Regional Planning Renewal for the Department of Geodesy at Delft University of Technology in Delft, Netherland and collaborated with Dutch land data specialists to create a standardization of land data terminology for The Netherlands.

Throughout his professional career, Albert Guttenberg has been very active in a variety of professional organizations including the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and American Planning Association (APA), where he has served as an advisor for the APA Land Based Classification Standards Study and authored and maintained the APA website column, "Pathways in American Planning History; A Thematic Chronology." He has received recognition for his scholarly research and service including: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1970-1971); Guest Scholarship at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C (1970-1971); Cornelius Marshall Fund Award from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (1979); German Marshall Fund Travel Award (1979); Fulbright Travel Grant to Rome, Italy (1986); and was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners (2001). Guttenberg also established the Albert and Mariella Guttenberg Library Endowment Fund, which provides support for the for the acquisition of collections at the UIUC City Planning and Landscape Architecture (CPLA) library.