Architecture as symbol: Elements of the German New Building

In June 1930 Viennese architect and designer Josef Frank stood before the assembled members of the German Werkbund, addressing them with a speech entitled "Was ist modern?" Frank called into question the "radical modernists' move toward stylizing and formalizing the new architecture, arguing his deeply-held belief that it was not singularity but diversity that defined modern culture. It was, he maintained, not from dictatorial principles, but out of this pluralism that the new architecture should grow and, if history was an accurate predictor, would eventually grow. In the following months, Frank developed this argument into an essay published in 1931. Architecture as Symbol: Elements of the German New Building would become Frank's only book-length work and. This volume represents the first complete English translation of Frank's seminal text. Accompanying this work is a critical prolegomenon that seeks to situate Frank's critique in the broader scope of his early theoretical and architectural output, particularly his houses. This introduction argues that Frank's text is unique in the canon of architectural literature from the period in its mode of argumentation, its formal presentation, and in its deploying of a diachronic history to substantiate his claim to the conceptual middle ground.