Josef Frank was born in Baden, near Vienna, Austria. In 1910 he received his diploma as an engineer at the Technologische Hochschule, in Vienna. He operated there as a freelance architect until the early 1930s. He often worked with architect Oskar Wlach, and occasionally with Oskar Strand, on buildings in Vienna and Pernitz, Lower Austria. Among his many projects he designed building interiors including the Museum of East Asian Art, Koeln, Germany (1912). From 1914 to 1925, he was professor at the School of Art and Crafts, Vienna. Frank also collaborated with the ‘Wiener Kreis’ group (Otto Neurath and others,) and Adolf Loos.
In 1925 he worked in partnership with Josef Hoffmann, Peter Behrons, Oskar Strand and Carl Witzmann on the Austrian pavilion at the International Exhibition of Art and Crafts, Paris. From 1924 to 1932 he built a number of municipal housing units, one family house, and other buildings in Vienna including the Karl-Marx-Hof (1930). Concurrently in 1925 he, with Oskar Wlach, founded the interior decoration store in Vienna Haus und Garten. Frank also designed furniture, wallpaper and other items for the home. He was a member of the O.W.B (Oesterreichisch Werkbund, and its vice President in 1929), and organized its 1927 exhibition in Vienna representing Austria at the International Werkbundsiedlung Weissenhof, Stuttgart, with a two-family house. In 1929 he founded the C.I.A.M. ‘Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne,’ and participated in C.I.A.M. conventions. he edited the Internationale Werkbundsiedlung from 1932 to 1934. Frank was a member of the S.P.D. (Socialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – the German Social Democrat).
In 1932, he started his first projects for the interior decoration store Svenskt Tenn, Stockholm, Sweden and iIn 1934 he immigrated to Sweden and settled in Stockholm where he worked as a designer at Svenskt Tenn leaving in 1941. He also received public and private commissions (embassies, banks, buildings and private homes) for furniture, decorative objects, wallpaper, textiles etc. His architectural works included Villa Wehtje Falsterbo (1936). In 1937 he participated in World’s Fair, Paris.
Josef Frank moved to the U.S.A in 1941 where he was professor of architecture at the New York School for Research, New York through 1946. He lived temporarily in London, where he was a member of the architect’s organization ‘The Circle’ (in 1964 honorary member) and in 1952 returned to Stockholm.
Frank received the Grand Prize of Austria in 1965 and an exhibition was sponsored by the Austrian Society for Architects. In 1968 a retrospective exhibition took place at the National Museum of Stockholm, entitled ‘Josef Frank 20 ar i Svenskt Tenn’, another large retrospective exhibition was held in his honor at the Austrian Museum for Applied Art in 1975.