Josef Frank – Swedish Modern Aug - Oct 2008 In collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in Berlin. Josef Frank 1885-1967. Austrian Architect, designer and theorist. Educated in Vienna just after the turn of the century. Known as one of the leading modernists of the 1920s, but also for his criticism of 1930s modern architecture. He dismissed uniformity, insisting that it was pluralism that most characterised life in the new machine age. Josef Frank called for a more humane modernism, one that responds to people's everyday need and left room for sentimentality and historical influences. It was this basic set of ideas that Frank brought with him to Stockholm in 1933. His decision to seek exile in Sweden from the rising threats of fascism were prompted in part by an offer from Estrid Ericson, owner of the furnishings firm Svenskt Tenn. At her company he came to work as chief designer for more than thirty years.&nbsp;