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Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon OBEL, Mark Born: 1894 Died: 1988 07 05 Architect Worked mainly in Johannesburg. He was born in London and came to South Africa in 1895. He trained as an engineer at the Transvaal Technical College and then changed to architecture. He joined his brother, Louis Theodore OBEL, in practice in around 1929 (cf. OBEL & OBEL) in Johannesburg and Durban. In 1941 he joined his brother at Columbia University in New York in order to study town planning, water and land conservation under Feiss. He returned to South Africa in 1948, having worked in the South African Embassy in New York during the Second World War. Obel is said to have pioneered the decentralisation of Johannesburg by submitting a paper on Town Planning to Johannesburg City Council which led to the development of Rosebank, Johannesburg (n.d.). He resigned from the Institute of South African Architects in 1957. ISAA 1928. (ISAA mem list; Norwich 1985) All truncated references not fully cited in 'References' are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.