Josef Frank

Austria

Person

Designer

Born 15 July 1885 Baden, Austria-Hungary Died 8 January 1967 Stockholm, Sweden Josef Frank studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna from 1903 to 1910. From 1919 to 1926 he taught structural engineering at the School of Arts and Crafts of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna. In 1925 he founded the interior design company Haus & Garden together with Oskar Wlach and Walter Sobotka. Among his most important architectural works were a duplex in the Weißenhof Estate in Stuttgart (1927) and his role as head of urban planning for the Vienna Werkbund Estate (1932). In 1928 he participated in the first Congrès international d’architecture moderne (CIAM) in La Sarraz. In response to political developments in Germany and Austria and because of his Jewish background, he emigrated to Stockholm in 1933. From 1933 to 1941 he designed furniture, lighting, and textiles for Svenskt Tenn. During his exile in New York from 1941 to 1945, he taught at The New School for Social Research. After returning to Stockholm, he resumed his work for Svenskt Tenn. He received the City of Vienna Prize for Design in 1960 and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Architecture in 1965.