JOSEPH FRANK. Against Design. The architect's anti-formalist work

German English
368 pages, numerous color illustrations
31 x 23.5 cm, hardcover
MAK, Vienna / Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2016

The catalog is dedicated to one of the most important Austrian architects of the 20th century. In addition to his groundbreaking architectural work, Josef Frank (1885–1967) is particularly highlighted as a designer to whom international design owes important impulses to this day: As a “contemporary” architect and “designer”, he represented a pragmatic design approach in which less formal qualities rather than those of social experience were in the foreground. Especially today, Josef Frank's ideas of unaffected and unpretentious practicality, which aims at an independently free and enlightened bourgeois living culture beyond stylistic dogmas and fashion conventions, seem more relevant than ever.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name (December 16, 2015–June 12, 2016) at the MAK.

Edited by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt. Texts by Mikael Bergquist/Caterina Cardamone, Claudia Cavallar/Hermann Czech, Jan Christer Eriksson/Sebastian Hackenschmidt, Otto Kapfinger/Friedrich Kurrent, Christopher Long/Iris Meder, Olof Michélsen/Jan Norrman, Ursula Prokop/Elena Shapira, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein/ Jiří Uhlíř, Angela Völker/Kristina Wängberg-Eriksson