Josef Hoffmann was born in the Moravian village of Pirnitz (Brtnice) in 1870. In 1887 he enrolled in the architecture department of the Staatsgewerbeschule (Higher State Vocational School) in Bruenn (Brno) alongside Adolf Loos.
After a course in the Militaerbauamt (Military Building Office) in Wuerzburg, Germany, he joined Vienna's Akademie der bildenden Kuenste (Academy of Fine Arts) in 1892, and moved to Vienna. In 1897, together with a group of artists including Koloman Moser, Gustav Klimt and Otto Wagner, Hoffmann was a founder member of the Wiener Seccession. In 1899 he was appointed professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts), a position he held until he retired in 1936; he taught in the departments of architecture, enameling, metalwork and applied art. In 1900 he visited the UK and met Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and three years later he founded the Wiener Werkstaette with Koloman Moser. In 1905 he was a member of the group around Klimt that left the Wiener Seccession, and in that same year he was commissioned to design the Palais Stoclet in Brussels.
Palais Stoclet, Brussels, 1905-1911
Dining Room in Palais Stoclet, designed with Gustav Klimt
Also in 1905, he designed one of his most iconic pieces of furniture, the Sitzmachine ('Seating Machine').
Sitzmachine, 1905, executed by J & J Kohn, Vienna
Hoffmann considered himself primarily as an architect, but today he is at least as well remembered for his furniture and for smaller design objects in metal and glass particularly.
Fruit Basket, 1908
Glassware, 1912, executed by Lobmeyr
Later in life Hoffmann was mainly active as an architect of housing projects. He died in 1956 in Vienna, shortly after celebrating his 85th birthday in the Palais Stoclet.