Engineer, civil surveyor, owner of a brickyard and steam sawmill, real estate entrepreneur, town councillor, council member, and head of a building department—this is just a short and incomplete list of the titles associated with the name Josef Šupich.

Josef Šupich came from Dvůr Králové, where he was born into the family of weaver Ignác Šupich. He studied civil engineering at the Prague Technical University under Professor Josef Zítek. After his studies, he briefly collaborated with Zítek on his Prague projects.

In 1868, probably in connection with the construction of the Northwest Railway, he moved to Německý (Havlíčkův) Brod, where he founded the construction company “J. Šupich”, which gradually dominated the local construction industry. Like his teacher Josef Zítek, he mainly used neo-Gothic (St Wenceslas Church in Ždírec) and neo-Renaissance (Ignác Stefanko’s villa) (HB-2104) styles in his own design work.

An integral part of his company’s success was the construction of a sawmill and brickyard. In addition to its own projects, the firm carried out a number of buildings designed by other architects. Among the most significant in Německý Brod are the district public hospital designed by Karel Pokorný (1896–1897), and the grammar school designed by Ludvík Lábler (1906–1907) (HB-2004). He also drew up the town’s regulatory plan (1890).

After disagreements with the town council over the destruction of the dome of the Deanery Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary as a result of poorly executed repairs (HB-22) , he handed over the company to his son Prokop in 1910 and moved to Prague. Today, there is a street in Havlíčkův Brod which commemorates one of its foremost builders from the turn of 20th century.

He was a member of the Association of Architects and Engineers from 1873.