Engineer, architect, historian, and art theorist. Born in Lviv to a Jewish family, he received his diploma as a civil engineer-architect in 1907 from the Technical University of Munich. In 1911, he opened his own architectural bureau in Lviv. His architectural projects were executed in the styles of late Secession, Art Deco, and Modernism. He was a key proponent of the Jewish stylistic movement in Lviv’s architecture.
In the late Secession style, he designed residential income houses at 2, 4, and 6 Konopnytska Street (1911–1912) in collaboration with F. Kasler, as well as at 14 Konopnytska Street (1913), 14 Doroshenka Street (1911), 2–4 Slovatskoho Street (1912), 5 Yaponska Street (1910), and the Splendid Hotel at 6 Nalyvaika Street. The façade of the Jewish Industrial School at 28 Anhelovycha Street (1909) featured decorative inserts with stylized Jewish ornamentation.
With pronounced Art Deco elements, he designed the Biblos Printing House at 7 Yaponska Street (1926–1928) and a building for his own architectural bureau at 37 Vitovskoho Street (1928). Together with his wife Wanda, he actively participated in the cultural life of the Jewish community in Eastern Galicia. In the Society of Friends of Jewish Art, Józef presented 20 graphic works, while Wanda exhibited watercolors and pastels. Avin was also a co-founder of the Jewish Museum in Lviv and a member of the Jewish Musical Society.
Józef Avin perished in 1942 in the Yaniv concentration camp in Lviv. His wife Wanda and daughter Ewa-Ruth were murdered in the gas chambers of Bełżec. Only his daughter Hanka (1922–1987) and her son Andriy, born in January 1942, survived the war.