The life story of the lesser-known architect and teacher Josef Velfík, active in Plzeň and Prague, was similar to that of his colleagues Jan Šula and Viktorin Šulc. After graduating from the Czech Polytechnic in Prague in 1891, he was employed as a building clerk with the Crown Authorities. In 1899, he commenced his teaching activities at Plzeň Polytechnic, before transferring to Prague in 1905 where he taught, as did Šula and Šulc, at the Technical College. In the early years of Czechoslovakia he was a building assessor for the banking department of the Ministry of Finance.
Even though the full extent of his work is not yet known, secondary sources declare Velflík to be the designer of a “range of public buildings and theatres”, but also of townhouses and villas, generally in the Neo-Baroque style. Apart from a few exceptions however, no specific building is mentioned. The most-known building proven to have been designed by Velflík remains Smetana House in Litomyšl (02-402), which Velflík writes about extensively in a passage entitled “Of building and its execution” in a special edition of the local periodical Obzor litomyšlský (Litomyšl Horizon) in 1905.
AŠ
1915–1917
Town houses
Valdštejnská ul., Prague - Malá Strana
- PV [Pavel Vlček], heslo Velflík, Josef, in: Pavel Vlček (ed.), Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, zedníků a kameníků v Čechách, Praha 2004, s. 690.
- Prokop Toman, Nový slovník československých výtvarných umělců II, Praha 1950, s. 644.
