Josip Vancas

Born into a Croat family in Sopron, Hungary, where his father worked as a postal clerk, Vancaš attended the High Technical School in Zagreb, where his father had been appointed postmaster. He then moved to Vienna to study architecture at the Technical University from 1876 to 1881. For one year Vancaš worked in the atelier of Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, then graduated in 1883 at the Art Academy in Vienna under the supervision of Friedrich von Schmidt, expert in medieval architecture, from whom he adopted the eclecticism-historical styles.

Schmidt recommended Vancaš to Benjamin Kállay to design the Sarajevo Cathedral, and Vancaš came to Sarajevo in 1884, working for the government until 1890 and then running his own studio till 1921. He would remain there for thirty-seven years, becoming a leading architectural authority, a member of the first Bosnian Parliament (1910), and the deputy mayor of Sarajevo.

During his long time in Bosnia (1883–1921) Vancaš constructed 102 residential houses, 70 churches, 12 schools, 10 palaces, 10 banks, 10 government municipal buildings, 6 hotels and taverns, and remodeled a series of buildings. Vancaš also produced drafts for church altars as well as drawings for the residential and ecclesiastical interiors. He exhibited his work at world exhibitions in Budapest (1896), Vienna (1898) and Paris (1900). In 1911, as a representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina Parliament, he submitted a resolution on the protection of cultural monuments in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

On 29 June 1914, Vancaš was one of the speakers addressing the crowd that later vandalized and looted Serb-owned property in Sarajevo during the unrest after Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

Vancaš also wrote several studies on Bosnian folk and urban architecture. From 1921 onwards he lived in Zagreb, where he died in Zagreb on 15 December 1932 at the age of 73.