Eva Buhrich b. 1915

  • Architect
Buhrich studied architecture at the Polytechnic University, Berlin with Hans Poelzig, moving to Zurich’s Technical University, then England by 1938, later to Australia in 1939. She worked as an architect in Canberra, moving to Sydney where she worked for the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station. By 1950, she was working as a design writer and critic with a column in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1957 to the late 1960s.

Eva Buhrich (1915-1976) escaped Germany because of her Jewish heritage. Studied architecture at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochshule (ETH) in Zurich and met future husband Hugh Buhrich in Holland; they married in London 1938. They arrived in Australia in 1939 with a letter of introduction to Professor Alfred Hook at the University of Sydney. In 1940 she gave birth to twin sons and during the war, she drafted for General Motors at Homebush. After the war, she worked for the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station for two years, then spent a year in practice with Hugh, before turning to freelance design projects. Later she bevame a public relations writer for J. Walter Thompson, then editor for Building Ideas and Furniture Trends. Her career in freelance architectural journalism included numerous articles for Australian Womens Weekly in the 1940s, Woman in the 1950s, Australian House and Garden in the early 1960s and a regular column in the Sydney Morning Herald 1957-late 1960s. She also worked with Hugh on their two family houses in Castlecrag.
Sources
—Willis, Julie and Bronwyn Hanna. 2001. Women Architects in Australia 1900-1950. Canberra: RAIA.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Davina Jackson
Date written:
1999
Last updated:
2015