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Josef Frank (15 July 1885 – 8 January 1967) was an Austrian-born architect, artist, and designer who adopted Swedish citizenship in the latter half of his life. Together with Oskar Strnad, he created the Vienna School of Architecture, and its concept of Modern houses, housing and interiors.


Life

Frank was of Jewish ancestry. His parents, merchant Ignaz (Isak) Frank (1851–1921, Vienna) and the Vienna-born Jenny (1861–1941), were originally from Heves in Hungary. He designed his parents' grave in the old Jewish section of Vienna's Central Cemetery (Group 19, Row 58, Grave No.52). He studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. He then taught at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts from 1919 to 1925. He was a founding member of the
Vienna Werkbund en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
, initiator and leader of the 1932 project Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna. In 1933, he emigrated to Sweden, where he gained citizenship in 1939. He was the most prestigious designer in the Stockholm design company
Svenskt Tenn Svenskt Tenn nglish: Swedish Pewteris a Swedish interior design store, founded in 1924 in Stockholm by Estrid Ericson, an art teacher and pewter artist from Hjo, Sweden. Since 1928, the company has been appointed as a royal warrant. Today, it is ...
(Swedish Pewter), recruited by the founder of the company,
Estrid Ericson Estrid Maria Ericson (1894–1981) was a Swedish designer, entrepreneur and founder of the interior decorating company Svenskt Tenn. Biography Estrid Maria Ericson was born in Öregrund but grew up in Hjo by Lake Vättern in Sweden. Her paren ...
. He remained in Sweden after 1945 despite attempts to return him to Vienna. The Vienna Circle manifesto lists three of his publications in a bibliography of closely related authors. Politically Frank believed in socialism. He was also the brother of the physicist, mathematician, and philosopher Philipp Frank.


Legacy

Josef Frank dealt early on with public housing and housing estates. Contrary to most other architects of the interwar period in Vienna, he took the idea of settlement and not the creation of so-called super blocks in the municipal housing. He also rejected facade decor and clearly preferred
functional Functional may refer to: * Movements in architecture: ** Functionalism (architecture) ** Form follows function * Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules * Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis: ** Functional sy ...
forms. The Viennese architect and furniture designer
Luigi Blue is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo's masc ...
refers to him as one of his idols. In addition to his architectural work he created numerous designs for furniture, furnishings, fabrics, wallpaper and carpet. He has been a painter, as well. An exhibition of his textile designs is to be held from January to May 2017, at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.


Recognition

* 1965 First Austrian Frank exhibition by the Austrian Society for Architecture * 1965 Grand Austrian State Prize for Architecture * 1981 Frank exhibition in the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna * 1991 The ''Josef-Frank-Gasse'' street in Donaustadt Vienna was named after the architect * 2007 The exhibition ''Josef Frank. Architect and Outsider '', The Jewish Museum Vienna field office Judenplatz * 2010 Was honored with a Google Doodle on 15 July in honor of his 125th birthday. * 2015–16 Exhibition "Josef Frank: Against Design" in the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna


Major projects

* Exhibition design of the East Asian Museum in Cologne (1912) * House Wilbrandtgasse 12, Vienna (1914) with
Oskar Wlach Oskar may refer to: * oskar (gene), the Drosophila gene * Oskar (given name), masculine given name See also * Oscar (disambiguation) Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name ...
and Oskar Strnad * Municipal housing Hoffingergasse in Altmannsdorf (Vienna), (1921–24), together with Erich Faber * Residential Building Wiedenhoferhof, Vienna (1924–25) * Residential Building Winarskyhof (1924–26), together with Adolf Loos, Peter Behrens, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky * Duplex in the
Weißenhofsiedlung The Weissenhof Estate (German: Weißenhofsiedlung) is a housing estate built for the 1927 Deutscher Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany. It was an international showcase of modern architecture's aspiration to provide cheap, simple, effici ...
, Stuttgart (1927) * Residential Building Sebastian-Kelch-Gasse 1–3, Vienna (1928–29) * House Beer (1929–30 with Wlach) The 800 square meter Villa Beer in Vienna 13th, Wenzgasse 12, realized in 1929 / 1930 for the rubber shoe sole manufacturer Julius Beer together with Oskar Wlach * Residential Building Simmeringer Hauptstraße 142–150, Vienna, (1931–32) with Oskar Wlach * Residential Building Leopoldine-Glöckel-yard in Vienna (1931–32) * Management of the Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna and Project for a house at Woinovichgasse 32 (1932) * Five villas in Falsterbo, southern Sweden (1927–1936) * House Vienna 19th, Wilbrandtgasse 3 (1914; former house of Emil and Agnes Scholl), with Oskar Wlach and Oskar Strnad * House Vienna 19th, Wilbrandtgasse 11 (1914; former house of Oskar and Hanny Strauss), with Oskar Wlach and Oskar Strnad * Villa Hugo Blitz, Weilburgstrasse 22 in Baden near Vienna, together with Oskar Wlach, "terrace and storey building", visible from the lido to this day (1928, preliminary studies from 1926)


Publications

*''Architecture as Symbol: Elements of the German New Building', 1931 (in German) *''The International Werkbundsiedlung Vienna 1932'', 1932 (in German) * ''Josef Frank. Schriften/Writings'' (Deutsch/English); 2 Bände/2 Volumes; (Ed.): Tano Bojankin, Christopher Long and Iris Meder, Metroverlag, Wien 2012


References


Further reading

* Botstein, Leon; Stritzl-Levine, Nina: ''Josef Frank, Architect and Designer: An Alternative Vision of the Modern Home'', Yale University Press, 2000 * Long, Christopher: ''Josef Frank: Life and Work'', University Of Chicago Press, 2001


External links


Directory of Josef Frank's designsSweden's bright spark: celebrating 30s designer Josef Frank
on The Guardian {{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, Josef 1885 births 1967 deaths 20th-century Swedish architects Modernist architects from Austria International style architects Vienna Circle Wiener Werkstätte Austrian architects Jewish architects Austrian designers Swedish designers Austrian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Swedish Jews Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Sweden People from Baden bei Wien Austrian socialists