Josef Frank (1885–1967)

Josef Frank was born to a Jewish family in Baden bei Wien, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents Jenny (Feilendorf) and Ignaz Frank, a merchant, were originally from Hungary. His older brother Philipp Frank became a noted physicist and philosopher. Josef studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. He then taught building construction at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts from 1919 to 1925. He designed housing estates and large residential blocks built around common courtyards in Vienna, which had a severe housing shortage after World War I. In addition to architectural work, he created numerous designs for furniture, furnishings, fabrics, wallpaper and carpet. He also was an artists and painter. Frank co-founded the interior decorating firm Haus und Garten & Co. in 1925 with Oskar Wlach and Walter Sobotka. The firm was renamed Haus & Garten, Frank & Wlach the following year. In 1933, following the rise of the Nazi regime to power in Germany, Frank emigrated to Sweden, where he became a citizen in 1939. He was the most prestigious designer in the Stockholm design company Svenskt Tenn, recruited by the company's founder, Estrid Ericson, and became a pioneer of Swedish Modern design. In 1940, after the German occupation of Denmark and Norway in World War II, Josef and his wife Anna moved temporarily to New York City, where he created his most innovative and substantial set of textile designs. His publications included Architecture as Symbol: Elements of the German "New Building" (1931).