Monio Gitai Weinraub

Monio Gitai Weinraub 1909 – 1970, Polish-born Bauhaus student who worked in Mies van der Rohe’s Berlin Architecture practice and studied under Hannes Meyer. He is credited as one of the architects who brought Bauhaus style from Germany to Israel when he emigrated to Haifa in British Mandate Palestine in 1934.

He set up a practice with Alfred (Al) Mansfeld from 1937 to 1959 and was appointed Head of the Department of Architecture for the Ministry of Labour working under the guidance of Arieh Sharon, the practice specialised in public buildings. Over his career he built over 300 buildings in the new state and was one of the earliest architects to recognise the need for a national monument of remembrance to the victims of the Holocaust.

Weinraub was well placed when the State of Israel was created, together with Al Mansfeld he won the competition to design Jerusalem’s government district. That plan altered ultimately beyond recognition and all that can be seen today is the office of the Prime Minister and a few ministries. Amongst his other buildings of note is the 1962 re-design of Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk, founded in 1938.

Weinraub taught architecture at the Technion for 2o years.

His son is award-winning director Amos Gitai who has dedicated a museum to his father’s legacy in Haifa and has featured his story in the film ‘Lullaby to my Father’. A complex court case arose about the ownership of Al Mansfeld’s contribution to the Weinraub-Mansfeld archive which was settled in 2012.