Socialist Architect Josef Frank’s Modernism Was All About Freedom
The Austrian socialist architect Josef Frank resisted modernists who wanted to make homes look like workplaces — an idea with new resonance in an age when so many of us are working from home and feel like we can't escape from our work.
Josef Frank design, 1932. (Photograph by Martin Gerlach / courtesy of Wien Museum)
In 2020, millions of people have unexpectedly been forced to turn their homes into their workplaces. Not only have the boundaries between work and home life collapsed, but new demands of “professionalism” have been placed on what was once a private sanctuary for many.
From a public health perspective, of course, a work-from-home policy is better than forcing workers back into enclosed spaces during an airborne pandemic. Some workers prefer to work from home, often citing greater privacy and flexibility as key benefits. But many have struggled with isolation, managing family care, and, in the age of the ubiquitous video call, finding a suitably “professional” place in the home to work.
But given that a number of large companies are already talking about making work-from-home permanent, there has been surprisingly little discussion about this new reality as either a labor or a housing issue.
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