Why interior designers adore Josef Frank – and how to use his designs at home

The architect and designer who helped to set up Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm has had a huge influence on the course of interior design – we pick our favourite design ideas for using his patterns in a scheme

A little pattern can go a long way, and we love how Beata Heuman has used the ‘Hawai’ pattern on the wardrobe doors in the dressing room of this London apartment.

Simon Brown

Few individual designers have such an enduring legacy as Josef Frank, who fled from his native Austria to Sweden in the 1930s and became involved with the now-iconic homewares shop Svenskt Tenn not long after it was founded. The fabrics he designed for the shop are instantly recognisable: each design in the vast collection is characterised by a distinctive combination of eclectic colour schemes and bold floral prints. It's hard to imagine how unusual they were at the time, as the clean lines and understated forms of modernism dominated the design world. Frank's work received lukewarm reviews from the press in Sweden when it first came out, but went on to become a defining element of Swedish culture.

Josef Frank's 'Under Ekvatorn' pattern covers the sofa in this Utah cottage by Meta Coleman. Using one of Frank's patterns on a sofa in an otherwise plain room is an easy way to incorporate them.

Meta Coleman

Josef Frank

brandstaetter images/Getty Images

Frank was already well-established as a designer before he came to Stockholm. In Vienna he had designed for Haus & Garten, a company that he founded in 1925. As well as working for wealthy clients, he designed affordable workers' apartments that offered plenty of light, air, and attractive views. This emphasis on accessibility and comfort remained a signature of his work. As an immigrant to Sweden later, once he had escaped the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Vienna with his Swedish wife Anna, he initially found looking for work difficult. However, a young art teacher, Estrid Ericson, had opened Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm in 1924, and offered him the chance to work for her shop. Together Frank and Ericson created distinctive patterns, colours and furniture that were fun and totally unintimidating. In addition to fabric, Frank's prodigious also output included chairs, sofas, lamps, bowls, vases, trays, tables, stool and cabinets. Altogether he left behind 2,000 furniture sketches and about 160 textile designs.

We love the use of Frank's ‘Aurora’ pattern in this airy Swedish country house, which makes a cheerful backdrop for simple white upholstery and pale wood furniture. “We picked it because it has a lot of the flowers that we have in the garden,” says Erik, “so during the long winters we look at it as a reminder that there will be a spring.”

Line T. Klein

The much-loved 'Klöverblad' wallpaper makes for a fresh, spring-like backdrop to the bathroom in this Utah cottage by Meta Coleman.

Meta Coleman

Frank's textile designs are full of whimsical tropical flowers, ferns, birds and insects, oversized maps and a sense of adventure. Bold and vivid as they are, the patterns appear again and again in the houses we feature on our pages, and are surprisingly versatile and easy to use. Martin Brudnizki, no stranger to a lively pattern, sees Frank's unique visual language as part of an essentially Swedish tradition. "It's a distinctly Swedish thing to take classical motifs and abstract them to create more modern and simple lines. You can see this in how Josef Frank re-interpreted botanical patterns," he explains. "Frank brought something to Sweden that we didn't have," adds Maria Wiberg, Curator of the Millesgården Museum, which houses much of his work. "His work makes you happy."

Josef Frank’s ‘Mirakel’ fabric from Svenskt Tenn covers the headboard in the main suite of the 8 Holland Street townhouse, the chocolatey brown colour an excellent foil for the off-white and blue paint scheme.

Owen Gale

Next door in the bathroom of the 8 Holland Street townhouse a distinctive ‘Frank’ rug occupies the floor. As the Svenskt Tenn website notes, “Josef Frank was no fan of game hunting and he designed several rugs with the purpose of replacing real animal skins. Flowers and birds were not to be tramped upon, but you could possibly tramp upon on beasts.”

Owen Gale

Unlike many designers, Frank relished the prospect of clients moving things around to suit daily life. "The house is not a work of art, simply a place where one lives," he once wrote. So his work lends itself to casual mixing with disperate styles. Ilse Crawford, a British interior designer and admirer, explains that "Frank was interested in liveability, and the idea of a humanistic architecture that grew with its inhabitants. His thinking on design was insightful, human-centered and extremely relevant for our times."

In the living room of this London mews house belonging to designer Caroline Riddell a Fifties Hungarian rocker is covered in 'Aralia' by Josef Frank for Svenskt Tenn.

Lucas Allen

Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm still owns all Frank's designs, and they are made to his instructions; producing the 160 fabrics that he designed in rotation. 45 of the fabrics are produced and sold at any one time. Swedish designer Beata Heuman calls Frank perhaps her most important design influence. “His designs pushed boundaries," she says, "yet they are timeless and still totally relevant today. I look at them constantly and I just want to know how he did it!”

svenskttenn.com