Josef Frank (15 July 1885 – 8 January 1967) was an Austrian-born

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, artist, and designer who adopted Swedish citizenship in the latter half of his life. Together with

Oskar Strnad Oskar Strnad (26 October 1879 – 3 September 1935) was an Austrian architect, sculptor, designer and set designer for films and theatres. Together with Josef Frank he was instrumental in creating the distinctive character of the '' Wiener S ...

, 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 en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

) and the Vienna-born Jenny (1861–1941), were originally from

Heves Heves is a small town in eastern Hungary. About 100 km east of Budapest, Heves lies at the northern extreme of the Great Hungarian Plain, just south of the Mátra and Bükk hills and west of the Tisza River. Heves gave its name to the Heves ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. He designed his parents' grave in the old Jewish section of

Vienna's Central Cemetery The Vienna Central Cemetery (german: Wiener Zentralfriedhof) is one of the largest cemeteries in the world by number of interred, and is the most well-known cemetery among Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , regi ...

(Group 19, Row 58, Grave No.52). He studied architecture at the

Vienna University of Technology TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

. He then taught at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts from 1919 to 1925. He was a founding member of the Vienna Werkbund, initiator and leader of the 1932 project Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna. In 1933, he

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to Sweden, where he gained

citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

in 1939. He was the most prestigious designer in the Stockholm design company Svenskt Tenn (Swedish Pewter), recruited by the founder of the company, Estrid Ericson. He remained in Sweden after 1945 despite attempts to return him to Vienna. The

Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle (german: Wiener Kreis) of Logical Empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, ch ...

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 Philipp Frank (March 20, 1884 – July 21, 1966) was a physicist, mathematician and philosopher of the early-to-mid 20th century. He was a logical positivist, and a member of the Vienna Circle. He was influenced by Mach and was one of the Machis ...

Legacy

Josef Frank dealt early on with

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

and

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States ...

s. 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 forms. The Viennese architect and

furniture design Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Fu ...

er Luigi Blue refers to him as one of his idols. In addition to his architectural work he created numerous designs for furniture, furnishings, fabrics,

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so ...

and

carpet A carpet is a textile floor covering typically consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile was traditionally made from wool, but since the 20th century synthetic fibers such as polypropylene, nylon, or polyester hav ...

. 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 The Fashion and Textile Museum is the only museum in the UK dedicated to showcasing contemporary fashion and textile design. The museum is committed to presenting varied, creative and engaging exhibitions, alongside an exciting selection of educ ...

in London.

Recognition

* 1965 First Austrian Frank exhibition by the Austrian Society for Architecture * 1965

Grand Austrian State Prize The Grand Austrian State Prize () is a decoration given annually by Austria to an artist for exceptional work. The recipient must be an Austrian citizen with a permanent residence in Austria. It was originally created in 1950 by then education mi ...

for Architecture * 1981 Frank exhibition in the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna * 1991 The ''Josef-Frank-Gasse'' street in

Donaustadt Donaustadt (; literally, Danube City; Central Bavarian: ''Donaustod'') is the 22nd district of Vienna, Austria (german: 22. Bezirk, Donaustadt). Donaustadt is the eastern district of Vienna.Statistik Austria, 2007, webpage statistik.at-23450. ...

Vienna was named after the architect * 2007 The exhibition ''Josef Frank. Architect and Outsider '', The

Jewish Museum Vienna The Jüdisches Museum Wien, trading as ''Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien GmbH'' or the Jewish Museum Vienna, is a museum of Jewish history, life and religion in Austria. The museum is present on two locations, in the Palais Eskeles in the Dorot ...

field office Judenplatz * 2010 Was honored with a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

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

Weissenhof photo house Josef Frank south east side Stuttgart Germany 2005-10-08

* Exhibition design of the East Asian Museum in Cologne (1912) * House Wilbrandtgasse 12, Vienna (1914) with Oskar Wlach and

* 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 Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to modernism and a widely- ...

Peter Behrens Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a leading German architect, graphic and industrial designer, best known for his early pioneering AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and ...

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky Margarete "Grete" Lihotzky (born 23 January 1897 in the Margareten district of Vienna, Austria-Hungary – 18 January 2000) was an Austrian architect and a communist activist in the Austrian resistance to Nazism. She is mostly remembered tod ...

* Duplex in the Weißenhofsiedlung, 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 Falsterbo (, outdatedly ) is a town located at the south-western tip of Sweden in Vellinge Municipality in Skåne. Falsterbo is situated in the southern part of the Falsterbo peninsula. It is part of Skanör med Falsterbo, one of Sweden's histor ...

, 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

External links

Directory of Josef Frank's designsSweden's bright spark: celebrating 30s designer Josef Frank
on

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

{{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