Dana Azrieli

Born in Maków-Maz, Poland, David Azrieli was the second of four children of Sara-Chaya (née Gerwer) and Rafael Hirsch Azrylewicz.

David Azrieli’s travels in the Soviet Union took him to Gomel, Stalingrad, Ulyanovsk, Tashkent, and Bukhara. In the fall of 1942, he joined the Polish “Anders” Army in Bukhara and moved with them into Iran and then to Baghdad.

David reached British Mandate Palestine in late 1942. He studied architecture at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology from 1943-1946. In 1946, David Azrieli learned that, of his family, only one brother survived the Holocaust. He served in the Seventh Brigade during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, taking part in the Latrun campaign during the siege of Jerusalem.

David Azrieli moved to Montreal in 1954, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts from the Universite de Montreal. He launched his career in design, real estate development, and property management in 1957 with the modest construction of four duplexes in Montreal.

David Azrieli founded Canpro Investments Ltd. in Montreal in the early 1960s, at first focusing on developing high-rise residential buildings and, in 1967, building the 250-room Hotel “Des Artistes” that housed the musicians and other artists who performed at Expo ’67. Following his success there, he moved on to bigger commercial projects, designing his first shopping center in 1969.

In the early 1980s, David Azrieli decided to bring what he had learned about construction, design and development to Israel. In 1985, he opened Israel’s first enclosed shopping center in Ramat Gan – the Canion Ayalon – setting off a revolution in the finance and retail industry.

This decade marked forever changing the Tel Aviv skyline in 1998 when he opened the Azrieli Center – an iconic and striking landmark which was completed in 2008.

Over the years, Mr. Azrieli has been actively involved in pursuing his love of architecture and education and has been instrumental in promoting and supporting studies in architecture at various levels in different countries. A few of the landmarks associated with Mr. Azrieli (Z”l) are :

– Chair in Architecture & Town Planning, Technion Institute of Technology.

– Chair in Urban & Environmental Architecture, Tel Aviv University.

– Established the First Graduate Scholarship at Concordia University, 1975.

– Established the Azrieli Holocaust Library Collection, Concordia University, 1982.

– Established the David J. Azrieli Institute for Graduate Studies in Architecture at Carleton University, 2000.

– Established The Azrieli Integrated Center for the Advancement of Youth – A Project to prevent dropouts from High School.

– Established The Azrieli Foundation Graduate Fellowship in Holocaust Studies at Concordia University, 2002