Church of Saint Joseph, Baroque church in Slezská Ostrava, Czech Republic

The Church of Saint Joseph is a baroque church in Slezská Ostrava featuring a rectangular tower that projects from its facade and sits on a hill southeast of the former Polish settlement of Ostrava. The construction combines hollow bricks with an iron frame to achieve both structural stability and a traditional architectural appearance.

The present church replaced a wooden Church of St George that had served the parish since the 14th or early 15th century. Construction of the late-baroque Church of St Joseph began on 9 May 1780 under Count František Josef Wilczek and was completed and consecrated on 9 September 1783. In 1913 mining subsidence forced its closure; reinforced concrete, an iron frame and cables stabilized it, and it reopened in 1929.

The parish dates to the 14th or early 15th century and was listed in 1447 under the name Ostravia in the papal tithe register of the Opole archdeacon Mikołaj Wolff. From the 1870s Polish-speaking Catholics from Galicia settled here, and Polish sermons were introduced in the church through Karol Hudźec, vicar general from 1897 to 1902.

The church stands on a hill southeast of the former Polská Ostrava settlement, by the old imperial road from Ostrava through Těrlicko to Těšín. The tower, rebuilt in iron and clad in hollow bricks after the 1913–1928 stabilisation, is the landmark to aim for when approaching from the road.

Between 1913 and 1928, the church subsided about 8 meters as mining activities undermined the ground beneath it, yet engineers stabilized it using innovative steel and concrete reinforcement. This salvage effort represents an unusual case of how industrial change forced creative architectural solutions.