Karel Hugo Kepka

Kepka studied civil engineering under Jan Koula and Josef Schulz at the Czech Technical University in Prague (1887–1893) and subsequently worked as assistant to professor Jiří Pacold, with whom he collaborated not only on architectural projects but also on the first comprehensive publication about Czech civil engineering – Civil Engineering Structures (1900). His first major success as an architect came in 1898, when he was awarded a silver medal at the Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering in Prague. That same year he moved to Brno, where he was awarded a professorship at the Czech State Technical School. He ended his teaching career at the Czech Technical University in Brno, where he was an honorary associate professor (after 1901) and professor of civil engineering (after 1906). He also served two terms as dean of the Department of Civil Engineering (1908/1909 and 1911/1912) and was rector in 1915–1917. In 1919 he pushed for the creation of an independent Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, and he was the department’s first professor (1920–1921) and first dean. His realized architectural projects primarily consists of showcase municipal buildings (town halls, savings banks, town houses), schools, university buildings, Sokol buildings and religious structures (e.g., the Church of the Sacred Heart in Brno-Husovice).

Lucie Valdhansová

Architect
Karel Hugo Kepka

Date of birth
26. 7. 1869 Plzeň

Deceased
30. 6. 1924 Brno