Art and designניצה מצגר-סמוק

Nitza Metzger-Szmuk

Nitza Metzger-Szmuk is an Israeli architect known for documenting and preserving the International Style buildings of Tel Aviv's White City.

born 1945Preserving Tel Aviv's White CityThe book "Dwelling on the Dunes"Founding Tel Aviv's municipal conservation team

Occupation: architect
Education: University of Florence

Nitza Metzger-Szmuk was born in 1945 in Tel Aviv

Nitza Metzger-Szmuk was born in Tel Aviv in 1945. She studied architecture at the University of Florence in Italy and finished in 1978. She then worked in Florence on the conservation of historic buildings.

After returning to Israel, she carried out a survey of the city's International Style buildings for the Tel Aviv Foundation. The survey became the basis for the city's preservation plan and for her book "Dwelling on the Dunes," first published in 1994. She set up the conservation team at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality and led it until 2002.

She is credited with a large part in UNESCO's 2003 declaration of the White City as a World Heritage Site. That year she opened a private architecture office focused on preservation, whose projects include Bialik House. In 2004 she curated an exhibition on the White City at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which later traveled abroad.

In 2005 she joined the Technion faculty, and in 2006 she became an associate professor. Until 2013 she headed its graduate program in architecture with a specialization in preservation. Her husband, Peter Szmuk, is an architectural photographer.