Joseph J. Levitin

Architect, Civil Engineer

Born 30 April 1883 in Gomel; died after 1943. 

J. J. Levitin trained in architecture in Liege, Belgium, and since 1911 was based in China. He was Chief Architect of Harbin for almost a decade. After resigning in 1920, he had a private practice. Some of his projects are: the City Inn in neoclassical style on Mostovaya St., Pristan district (1920); Jewish school Talmud Torah on Konnaya Street (1920) and Jewish Charity Home for the Aged on Artilleriyskaya St. (1920), both in Middle-Eastern style; Commercial College and Dormitory on Nagorny Prospekt in the New City (1928–1930); Harbin Library (1930) in “American” beaux arts style; Jewish High School; Thriftcor Bank building, and a number of residences and apartment houses. 

In Harbin, Levitin was a co-owner of the prestigious Hotel Moderne. At one point he was also director of Harbin Tramways. He had traveled extensively in Europe and the USA. 

Levitin came to Shanghai in January 1930 and soon opened his studio J. J. Levitin 列维金工程师, in the Bearn Apartments, 475 Avenue Joffre, where he stayed for more than fifteen years. In October 1931, one of the city’s leading newspapers ran an illustrated feature about his Harbin career, in which the architect announced his plans to introduce American-style co-operative apartments in Shanghai.

The full scope of Levitin’s work in Shanghai is not fully known. According to the architectural drawings in the hold of Municipal Urban Construction Archives, in autumn 1941 Levitin was responsible for redesigning the ground floor of Washington Apartments to contain shops and servants‘ quarters. 

Levitin was active in the public work aimed at Ashkenazi Jews. In the 1930s he headed the Tientsin branch of Betar. During the founding of the Jewish Club in Shanghai in April 1932, he became its librarian, and later, in 1942, he was among the Club’s stewards. In 1943, he was in the housing commission of SACRA (Shanghai Ashkenazic Collaborating Relief Association). Levitin’s activities and whereabouts after 1944, when he last renewed his emigrant card, have not been traced.

Levitin was married to Anna Markovna Levitin, b. 1894 in Odessa, and had a son, Bruno, b. 1912 in Warsaw, an electrical engineer. The children had the Soviet citizenship. In 1951, as a refugee in the care of the IRO, Anna Levitin traveled via Hong Kong to Italy; Bruno Levitin and his wife Iraida went to Canada in 1952.