Josef Frank was one of the most significant figures of the Viennese Modernism. Born in 1885 in Baden near Vienna, he came from a liberal, assimilated Jewish bourgeois background. In clear opposition to the overly aestheticized Gesamtkunstwerk thinking of the Wiener Werkstätte, Frank established a new, undogmatic understanding of modern architecture in the 1910s, together with Oskar Strnad, Oskar Wlach, and others. His simply, casually, and seemingly improvised interiors exemplified his concept of a synthesis between bourgeois residential homes and the artists' studios of the bohemian lifestyle, representing an increasingly popular "Viennese School" of critical modernism. Together with Oskar Wlach, Frank operated the furnishing company "Haus und Garten" in Vienna. In 1934, he moved to Stockholm with his Swedish wife, where he built little but remained active until his death in 1967.