The First Female: Architecture Students at the Hebrew Technion

Abstract

The Hebrew Technion of Haifa opened in December 1924 with a single civil engineering and architecture department. It admitted Zipora Neufeld to its first cohort, an only woman out of sixteen students. By the end of the 1950s, 75 women had graduated from the architecture department out of a total of 325 students. Drawing on oral history, contemporary press sources and archival materials, this chapter investigates the first generation of women architects educated at the Technion during its formative three decades. It critically examines the institution’s agenda and practices, addressing questions of nationality, culture, immigration, and gender within its architectural education framework. Additionally, it analyses the personal and professional trajectories of these women, offering a comparative perspective to their contemporaries who trained in European institutions.