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Frank never tried to rely fully on chance, as Cage did when he composed music using the I Ching. He merely attempted to impart the impression of disorder; in the end, his designs remain as rigorously controlled as any other modernist’s work.

Nonetheless, during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Frank produced a number of designs for houses and other buildings based on his “Accidentist” principles. At their most extreme, they rejected all conventional notions of architectural ordering: Frank banished straight lines, opting instead for sensuous curves and free-form spaces, often superimposed upon each other in complex ways. The resultant designs, with their strident irregularities and oddly colored facades, flew in the face of modernist orthodoxy, offering a glimpse at a way of making architecture that has been adopted only in recent years by Frank Gehry and others. Few observers at the time had any sympathy or understanding for Frank’s works and he failed to find any willing clients.

Frank’s Accidental architecture, for all its odd mannerisms and insistent peculiarities, was a clear and consistent extension of his earlier design ideas for Svenskt Tenn: the belief in fostering an aesthetic that could appeal to both the mind and the senses. Frank’s own version of Swedish Modern suggested a very different course for mid 20th-century design — away from regularity and the dictates of functionalism; away from a rejection of the historical past and the celebration of novelty for its own sake; away from machine forms and simple geometries. In his celebration of vitality and freedom in design and his conviction that design must serve those who use it, Frank helped to foster a new course for modernism, one that was affective and appealing; Swedish Modern continues to enjoy remarkable popularity around the world. At the same time, Frank charted a course for design that is coming more and more to the fore: an aesthetic of complexity and difficulty that is capable of expressing our own unsettled age.

Christopher Long teaches architecture and design history at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written widely on modernism, including Josef Frank: Life and Work and Paul T. Frankl and Modern American Design.

The author thanks Svenkst Tenn and Bukowskis, both of Stockholm, for graciously permitting the publication of photographs from their collections. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117
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