Genia Averbuch

Genia Averbuch was born in 1909 in Smila

Averbuch was born in 1909 in Smila, in the Russian Empire. Her family moved to the Land of Israel in 1911 and settled in Tel Aviv. Her father Zeev was the city's first pharmacist, and her mother Zviya was a sculptor.

She finished school at the Herzliya Gymnasium and in 1926 began studying architecture in Rome. She continued in Brussels and received her architecture diploma from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts there in 1930.

Back in Tel Aviv, she worked in the technical department of the Jewish Agency under Richard Kauffmann. She then opened a firm with architect Shlomo Ginsburg, to whom she was briefly married, and later worked with engineer Zalman Baron. In 1934 she won the competition to design Zina Dizengoff Circle.

She married Haim Elperin, the first commissioner of the Tel Aviv Police, and their son Daniel was born in 1936. From 1939 she designed institutions for women and children for several women's organizations, including youth villages for Holocaust refugees. In the 1960s she designed synagogues in Pardes Hannah and at kibbutz Ein HaNatziv.

Averbuch died in 1977. Many of her Tel Aviv buildings are part of the White City and are marked for preservation. A circle in Tel Aviv was later named for her.