Walter Landor

Landor was born to Fritz and Elsie Landauer, a Jewish family, in Munich in 1913. Fritz Landauer was a prominent architect, and Landor grew up drawing in his father's studio; he realized he wanted to study industrial design instead of architecture early on. In early life Landor's aesthetic sense was influenced by the Bauhaus and Werkbund design movements. Landor left Munich for London in 1931, studying at London University's Goldsmith College School of Art and changing his surname from Landauer to Landor. He was an intern at W. S. Crawford, Ltd in London in 1932, and decided to that he wanted to live in Britain. Following his studies at London University, Landor would help to found Industrial Design Partnership with Misha Black and Milner Gray in 1935, and one year later, the 23-year-old Landor became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

In 1939 Landor traveled to the United States as part of the design team for the British Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. After the Fair, he continued west to San Francisco and quickly decided to settle there. "For me it was a city that looked out on the whole world, a city built on the cultural traditions of east and west," he later said. "How could I live anywhere else?"

Landor became associate professor of industrial design and interior architecture at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1940. In June, Landor married the former Josephine Martinelli.