Home and Garden Chat

Josef Frank was born July 15, 1885 in Baden, Austria, and he spent a good period of his life in Sweden. As an architect  he was considered one of the fathers of modern Swedish design and is remembered for his prominent work in architecture and design for which he received prestigious awards during his lifetime as the State of Austria Grand Prix two years before his death.  In fact, Josef Frank had left Vienna in 1934 for Sweden, since most of his work was rather misunderstood in his homeland.  Frank’s work has been described as always in motion, bringing life to a room. Josef Frank was recognized internationally for his great work, this contributed to art which evolved into more modern techniques. Apart from his famous textiles, his designs range from furniture, lighting, glassware and architecture. His work plays with imagination and colour. During his lifetime Frank created a range of products, leaving over 200 patterns after his death in 1967. Some of his most famous textiles are Elephants and Manhattan. 

Josef Frank  was a renowned  and prominent Austrian-Swedish architect and designer.  Because of Swedens architecture and design, the artist stood out as the father of modern art in Scandinavia. It was in the Swedish soil where Josef was able to excel in the art world while working for Svenskt Tenn, the textile company that has created many designs that made him win the title of father of modern art.

His work is closely identified with the Swedish Modern aesthetic that emerged in 1930s and was widely admired in the decades following  World War II. Before World War I, he worked on architecture and interiors including the interior of the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne in 1910. After the war he entered academic life, becoming Professor of Building Design at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule in 1919, a post he held until 1925. From 1921 to 1924 he worked alongside Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Straad, and Oskar Wlach on the design of Viennese apartment buildings and, in the following year,he founded the Haus und Garten interior design firm. Most of his work in the later 1920s and early 1930s was centered on private and public housing, the most notable of these projects being the design of a two-family home for the celebrated Deutscher Werkbund housing exhibition at Stuttgart in 1927.

 Architect, designer, and theorist, his work is closely identified with the Swedish Modern aesthetic that emerged in 1930s and was widely admired in the decades following the Second World War. Educated in Vienna he worked on architecture and interiors and after the war he entered academic life, becoming Professor of Building Design at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule in 1919, a post he held until 1925. From 1921 to 1924 he worked alongside Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Straad, and Oskar Wlach on the design of Viennese apartment buildings and, in the following year, founded the Haus und Garten interior design firm.But Frank fell from grace when he emerged as a forceful critic of the extremes of modern architecture and design during the early 1930s. Dismissing the demands for a unified modern style, Frank insisted that it was pluralism, not uniformity, that most characterized life in the new machine age. He called instead for a more humane modernism, one that responded to people’s everyday needs and left room for sentimentality and historical influences.In 1932 he made contact with Estrid Ericson, the founder of Stockholm furnishings firm Svenskt Tenn, and two years later emigrated to Sweden where he would work as a chief designer for the company until his death 33 years later. His work came to define Swedish (or Scandinavian) modern design, producing colorful, cozy, and eclectic designs that provided a refreshing alternative to the architectural mainstream of the day and presaged the coming revolt against modernism in the 1960s.  A celebratory exhibition of Josef Franks work is held at Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm, Sweden, where he lived for many years. Josef Frank died in Stockholm January 8, 1967.  After 125 years his designs are still desired and celebrated. Long live creativity!