[1][2] Warchavchik was born in Odessa, Ukraine which was then a part of the Russian Empire.

He began his architectural studies at Odessa University and moved to Rome in 1918 to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, the Superior Institute of Fine Arts.

He graduated in 1920 and worked as an assistant to the architect Marcello Piacentini (1881-1960), later known as the main proponent of Fascist architecture in Italy.

[2] He married Mina Klabin in 1927, daughter of a prominent industrialist in São Paulo, and became a naturalized Brazilian.

His house in São Paulo, Casa da Rua Santa Cruz, built between 1927 and 1928, is considered the first modernist residence in Brazil.